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JOURNAL AND LETTERS 



OF THE LATE 



SAMUEL CURWEN, 

JUDGE OF ADMIRALTY, ETC., 

A LOYALIST-REFUGEE IN ENGLAND, 
DURING THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 

TO WHICH AKE ADDED, 

ILLUSTRATIVE DOCUMENTS 

A.TXD 

BIOGRAPHIC NOTICES 

OF MANY 

PROMINENT LOYALISTS AND OTHER EMINENT MEN. 
Kf^ivti iSlrftion. 



BY 

GEORGE ATKINSON WARD, A. M., 

/ 

MEMBER OF THE NEW-YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY, AND CORRESPONDING MEMBER OP TH» 
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 



" For my native coiintry I feel a filial fondness ; her follies I lament, her 
misfortunes I pity ; her good I ardently wish, and to be restored to her embraces 
is the warmest of mv desires." S. CuBwaN, Jan. 10,1780. Page 321. 



NEW-YORK : 

LEAVITT, TROW & CO., 194 BROADWAY. 

LONDON : WILEY AND PUTNAM, PATERNOSTER-ROW. 

1845. 



i 



^nt 



. c^igC^i- 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1845, by 

GEORGE A. WARD, 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New-York. 



/ i' 



J. F. TROW & CO., Printer? 
33 Ann-Btreet, New-York. 



■\ 



^ 



T> 



TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE 

THE LOUD LYNDHURST, 

LORD HIGH CHANGELLOiv. &c., &o., &c., 

Whose family held a distinguished rank among the American Loyalists proscribed for their 
opinions, THIS WORK, tending to show the strength of their principles, and the sacrifices they 
made in support of what they considered law and order and the best interests of their native land, 
is, by permission, MOST RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED; in the conviction that the merit 
and talents which have raised his Lordship to so exalted a station in the BRITISH EMPIRE, 
are as well appreciated by his NATIVE COUNTRYMEN as by those of the land of his adoption 

By his Lordship's most obedient 

and most humble servant, 

GEORGE ATKINSON WARD. 

New-York, August 1, 1844. 



PREFACE. 

The original manuscripts from which the body of the following 
work has been compiled, were sent in detached parts by the re- 
spected writer to his niece, a grand-parent of the editor, (in whose 
family they have remained for more than sixty years,) with the 
following injunction, viz. : 

" These papers were written partly by way of pastime, and part- 
ly with a view to future amusement, should it please the Sovereign 
Disposer of life to lengthen mine l^yond the period of banishment 
and restore me again to my native country; otherwise may they 
prove an entertainment to my friends, to whom I commend them, 
requesting their care to keep them from the inspection of all others, 
they being negligently written and but for the eye of candor and 
friendship, without method or order, as memory served, whereby 
many faults and anachronisms happened (if a technical expression 
applied to more important events may be used about such insigni- 
ficant trifles) ; if they shall afford them the least amusement, my 
purpose will be answered." 

The editor considers the present pubhcation of these papers not 
only as in no wise a violation of the injunction of his venerated 
relative, but as due to his memory, to exhibit to his countrymen the 
purity of his motives, and the ardent affection he bore towards his 
native land, even when constrained by a sense of duty to turn his 
back upon it. Another inducement for the publication is furnished 
by the incidental light thrown upon the character of his brethren 
in exile, of whom scarcely any now survive, but whose numerous 
descendants feel a deep sense of the injustice to which most of them, 
in a season of great popular excitement, were unfortunately sub- 
jected, who, under less adverse circumstances, had filled with honor 
civil posts of high trust, and led to victory our arms in the provin- 
cial wars. As the just fame of such as have distinguished them- 
selves in important public concerns has ever been esteemed among 
the most valued treasures of civilized nations, that of these loyalists, 
banished for opinion's sake, seems to call for a proper vindication 
at the hands of an impartial posterity, while the contrast of their 



iv PREFACE. 

• 

later with their earlier fortunes presents strong claims to the sym- 
pathy of mankind. 

The success of recent publications in the department of histori- 
cal writing having induced the belief that the period has arrived 
when a sealed book may be opened, and a dispassionate examina- 
tion had of the circumstances connected with that portion of our 
history in which the character of this proscribed class of our coun- 
trymen is involved, this work is offered with the hope of removing 
to some extent, if not fully, whatever obloquy has been unjustly 
cast upon their names, and to show that they were, in many in- 
stances, not the less actuated by lofty principle than those who 
embraced the popular opinions of the day, and adopted measures 
which resulted in such transcendant success. 

The editor has endeavored to present in the Supplement, if not 
a full, at least a brief account of every prominent loyalist, as well 
as of other persons of note, mentioned in the work; and he regrets 
that want of information, notwithstanding every effort to obtain it, 
has in some cases rendered his notices extremely imperfect, and in 
others left no alternative but to omit them altogether. 

Before the publication was decided upon, the editor submitted 
the work to Dr. Sparks, the distinguished American historian, and 
to George Folsom, Esq., of the publishing committee of the New 
York Historical Society, and editor of the society's recent excellent 
volume of Collections ; whose favorable opinion of the historical 
value of the journal and correspondence of Judge Curwen, ex- 
pressed in their respective letters already laid before the public, 
confirmed him in the design of giving to the light these interesting 
relics of a former generation, to which he feared his private re- 
gard for the memory of the venerated author might have attached 
undue importance. He presents his sincere thanks to those gentle- 
men for their encouraging letters, and the kind interest they have 
taken in the matter. 

The work is now submitted to the public by the Editor, without 
endorsing principles at variance with the spirit of the age; and 
should it prove successful and draw into this new field more com- 
petent laborers, the chief end of the publication will be attained. 

G. A. Ward. 
J\retv-York, JYovember, 1842. 



PKEFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 



The favorable reception of this work has induced the publica- 
tion of an enlarged edition. 

It is gratifying to the editor that his labors have attracted atten- 
tion, and drawn others into this fruitful field to rescue from the 
" tooth of time"' documents and letters illustrative of this neglected 
portion of our history, and embody them in a less ephemeral form. 

The following extract from a notice of this w*ork by W. Smith, 
Esq., in the Southern Review of July, 1843, is introduced for its 
liberal spirit and the contrast it bears to the sentiments expressed 
in a prominent Eastern Review, to which hereinafter a more par- 
ticular reference will be had. 

" It is not to be expected," says Mr. Smith, " that as a nation 
we should cherish with any popular fondness or pride, and blazon 
upon our republican escutcheons, the memories of those men who 
did not participate with the heroes of our Revolution in the success- 
ful struggle which achieved our independence, but were notable 
only for their opposition to its measures. At the same time there 
is too close a tie existing between us and the native loyalists of the 
Revolution, for us not to feel a portion of sympathy in their histories 
and character. We do not allude so much to the private interest 
which some among us might more especially have, who may be 
their descendants, but more particularly to the public claim, which, 
as natives of the same land — professing the same attachment to it 
— and as men, many of them eminent in our provincial annals, 
whose virtues reflected honor upon their country and humanity, 
they have upon us generally. We may very well, without doing 
any injury to our patriotic sentiments, reserve a share of generous 



ii PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 

and manly sympathy for the misguided and unfortunate ' in the 
times that tried men's souls ;'' whom we believe to have been ac- 
tuated by pure and high motives, by their best judgment of their 
country's good, and by a fearless devotion to their principles. 

"A more trying situation cannot be imagined than that in 
which the recusant loyalist was placed, who found himself, amid an 
opposing current of popular opinion, subjected to the fierce violence 
or harsh decrees of party rage or necessity, and forced to the alter- 
native of either recanting and abandoning his principles or becoming 
a martyr. And if, on the one hand, we admire and are proud of 
recalling to recollection the noble chivalry which graced our 
fathers and bore them triumphantly through a contest in which the 
odds appeared so greatly against them ; we may, on the other, pay 
a just tribute of respect and honor to the character of those who 
acted also from lofty impulses, whose only transgression was a 
difference of political opinion, and whose hearts as patriots, in their 
view of things, must have deeply bled at the dangers with which 
their country was threatened, and at their cruel exile from it and 

all that it contained which they held most dear." 

******* 

" The loyalist who honestly bejieved that America would be 
happier under the government of the mother country, or who saw 
in the disaffection of his countrymen only the rebellious overthrow' 
of law and order, — a weak attempt at resistance, without the pros- 
pect of success, the consequence of which would be, in all proba- 
bility, a disgraceful submission to British authority, under terms 
more onerous than those which were in disputation, would be doing 
but his duty to oppose, in the first instance, measures in his opinion 
fraught only with evil and wrong; but such a course was no doubt 
a source of secret chagrin and bitter discontent afterwards to many, 
who, in their unfortunate banishment, humiliated by the reverses 
of fortune, insulted by the taunts and revilings cast upon Ameri- 
cans, perplexed by their own mistakes of judgment, and brooding 
with feelings of wounded pride over the injuries sustained at the 
hands of their countrymen, must have been harassed by opposite 
anxieties and conflicting sentiments — at one time flattering them- 
selves that their wisdom would be manifest, and America, subdued 
and repentant, return to her allegiance, to a just sense of her real 



PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. Ill 

interest and security — a close connexion with the mother country ; — 
at another, cherishing in secret and with pride the behef of the in- 
ability of England to overcome America, and appearing even to 
anticipate the actual issue of the contest." 

The foregoing sentiments, worthy of a warm-hearted and patri- 
otic Carolinian, whose home was a battlefield of the revolution, 
may nobly be contrasted with the following extracts from a frigid 
and fastidious criticism of this work, contained in the North Ameri- 
can Review of January, 1843, understood to have been contributed 
by Charles F. Adams, Esq., a son of the ex-president of the United 
States. 

The reviewer states that " Nearly all of the judicial bench (of 
Massachusetts), most of the leading members of the bar, all the 
officers attached to the custom-house, a considerable number* of 
the graduates of Harvard College, many leading merchants, and 
most of the fashionable gentry, must be ranked upon the tory side 
at the commencement of the struggle. Comparatively few perse- 
vered in their principles at the cost of banishment and the confis- 
cation of their property. But some did so, and it has been one of 
the objects of the editor of this book to gather in it such informa- 
tion relative to their fate as might still be of general interest. 
Efforts of the same kind have lately been made in other quarters, 
and all with indifferent success. Probably if their history were 
known, it would be comprised in few words. Like trees trans- 
planted after they have attained maturity, they experienced a blight 
of their prosperity and vigor which no length of time could entirely 
remedy. The most fortunate repaired to other possessions of Great 
Britain, there to contribute to the formation of new systems of co- 
lonial vassalage, in return for the royal bounty not very graciously 
accorded to them ; while the remainder struggled on, in the home 
of their preference, with insult and neglect while living, and died 
at last unpitied and unknown." 

Among those styled by the reviewer as " the most fortunate" 
there were from his own neighborhood Leonard, Blowers, Bliss, 
Upham, Sewall, Putnam, Browne, Wentworth, and Chipman, all 
either Governors or Chief Justices of British provinces, besides 

* Upwards of sixty of these were banished. — Ed. 



iv PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 

many Judges, all of whose'names are emblazoned in capitals on 
the catalogue of Mr. Adams's alma mater, and who have, in sev- 
eral instances, been succeeded in their high stations by their pos- 
terity : — and as for the remainder, to which he refers as having 
" struggled on with insult and neglect,^'' many were ennobled ; and 
we are as much at loss to understand how their flace of banish- 
ment could have been " the home of their preference,'^ as that 
such loyalists as Sir Benjamin Thompson (Count Rumford), Isaac 
Royall, and William Erving (of whose generous bequests to Har- 
vard College our reviewer has availed himself), could have " died 
unpitied and unknown ! T* Mr. Adams goes on to say that 
" much allowance should be made for the influence which any fa- 
vorite pursuit will have in vitiating the judgment of the person 
engaged in it. But to excuse such cases, that judgment should at 
least be seen to be always sound where the peculiar bias is not 
strong enough to prevent its action. We do not perceive that this 
is the fact with Mr. Ward. The error which he commits in the 
preface (in stating that the loyalists were in many instances not the 
less actuated by lofty principles than those who embraced the popu- 
lar opinions of the day), re-appears in almost every page of his 
composition in the volume; and it is for that reason we feel that 
we must do our best to expose it. He surely need not be told 
that his doctrine, if adopted, would destroy the standard of right 
and wrong in public conduct completely." 

******* 

" If the editor had only claimed for the refugees honesty in the 
maintenance of their opinions, we should have had no disposition 
whatever, in many instances, to dispute it. But when Mr. Ward 
goes farther, and says that the loyalists were actuated by principles 
not less lofty than those who embraced the popular opinions of the 
day, &c., we must demur to the use of the word ' lofty,' so ap- 
plied, as well as to any comparison being made at all between the 
classes thus brought together." 

Mr. Adams admits that '• some of the loyalists persevered in 

* For an account of those noble foundations, the " Rumford," ^^Boi/- 
all" and " Smn"-" professorshipsj see duincy's History of the Univer- 
sity. 



PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. V 

their 'principles at the cost of banishment and the confiscation of 
their property ^^^ and we would ask if the motives to such sacrifices 
could have been ignoble ? 

Mr. Adams says, " Of Gov. Hutchinson, as a man, we cannot 
entertain the exalted opinion which the editor expresses. We be- 
lieve that he was respectable in private life, but selfish, grasping, 
and profligate, as a politician. Above all, we know that he was 
born an American, had been cradled in the nursery of republican 
principles, had raised himself to general consideration among his 
fellows by the support of them, and that he sacrificed them for a 
mess of pottage." 

Surely Mr. Adams never read his grandfather's Novanglus in 
reply to his antagonist, wherein he says, " What does Massachuset- 
tensis mean by independence ? Does he mean independent of 
Great Britain, and an independent government in America 7 No 
doubt he intended the undistinguishing should understand him so. 
If he did, nothing can be more wicked, or a greater slander on the 
wliigs — because he knows there is not a man in the province among 
the whigs, or ever was, who harbors a wish of that sort." 

Mr. Adams well knows that Mr. Hutchinson relinquished with 
great reluctance the office of Chief Justice (which he had filled to 
universal acceptance), and assumed the executive government, at 
the certain sacrifice of his popularity, and also that he afterwards 
refused a Baronetcy, which satisfied the world generally of the 
sincerity of his principles. And as we look in vain through his 
history for proof " that he was a selfish, grasping, profligate politi- 
cian,^^ we are constrained to impute the harshness of Mr. Adams's 
observations to obdurate and unyielding prejudice, imbibed from 
those by whom his political principles and habits of thought have 
probably been moulded. 

It is too painful to comment upon all the narrow views taken 
by the reviewer in his elaborate article, and it is unnecessary, as 
they are without doubt exclusively his own ; since we notice with 
pride, among others, the following remarks on an analogous sub- 
ject, in a subsequent number of the distinguished journal which 
contained his critique :* 

" Look, then, at the conduct, the speeches, and the writings of 

* North Am. Review, April, 1844. 



vi PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 

the earlier patriots, the proper ' fathers of the revolution,' — of 
such men as James Otis, John Dickinson, and Dr. Franklin. They 
all boasted of the connexion of the country with England, and 
gloried in the title of British subjects ; they were strongly attached 
to the land which they still called their 'home;' they acknowledged 
the duty of allegiance to the crown, and spoke with the gloomiest 
apprehensions of measures for a separation that might be forced 
upon them, if the ministry persisted in their schemes. The General 
Court of Massachusetts, in a memorial against the ' Sugar Act,' 
which they transmitted to their agent in England in the summer of 
1764, declared, that ' the connexion between Great Britain and 
her Colonies is so natural and strong, as to make their mutual hap- 
piness depend upon their mutual support. Nothing can tend more 
to the destruction of both, and to forward the measures of their 
enemies, than sowing the seeds of jealousy, animosity, and dissen- 
sion between the mother country and the Colonies.' James Otis, 
in his * Rights of the British Colonies,' published the same year, 
writes thus : ' We all think ourselves happy under Great Britain. 
We love, esteem, and reverence our mother country, and adore our 
king.' As late as July, 1774, John Dickinson, 'the Pennsylvania 
Farmer,' wrote the ' instructions ' presented by the deputies of sev- 
eral counties in Pennsylvania to their representatives in the General 
Assembly, from which we make the following extract : — 

" ' We well know that the Colonists are charged by many per- 
sons in Great Britain, with attempting to obtain such an exclusion 
[of any power of parliament over these Colonies], and a total inde- 
pendence of her. As well we know the accusation to be utterly 
false. We can safely appeal to that Being from whom no thought 
can be concealed, that our warmest wish and utmost ambition is, 
that we and our posterity may ever remain subordinate to and depend- 
ent upon our parent state. This submission our reason approves, 
our affection dictates, our duty commands, and our interest enforces.' " 

Mr. Adams seems to coincide in opinion with " the sons of lib- 
erty," referred to in the Life of Hamilton, 2d vol., p. 260, " through 
whose proceedings intolerance sought to conceal its deformity un- 
der the mask of the demagogue." The editor of that valuable 
work goes on to say, that " The proscribed loyalists from New 
York petitioned for permission to return — this was a moment mag- 



PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. Vli 

nanimity would have embraced to shield the defenceless, but the 
Governor in his opening speech threw the weight of his influence 
into the popular scale, and they were rejected." 

General Washington thus addressed his friend Bryan Fairfax, a 
loyalist, upon obtaining for him permission to retreat to England : 
"The friendship which I ever professed and felt for you met with 
no diminution from the difference in our political opinions. I knew 
the rectitude of my own sentiments, and believing in the sincerity 
of yours, lamented, although I did not condemn, your renunciation 
of the creed I had adopted." 

General Washington also recommended Congress to authorize 
a proclamation of pardon to such of the refugees as would return 
and signify their allegiance to their native country. That pure pa- 
triot, John Jay, was American Minister to Madrid when the New- 
York Confiscation Act of 1779 was passed. In a letter to Gov. 
George Clinton, dated May, 1780, he says, " An English paper con- 
tains what they call, but which I can hardly believe to be, your Con- 
fiscation Act. If truly printed, New-York is disgraced by injustice 
too palpable to admit even of palliation." Upon this the biogra- 
pher of Mr. Jay remarks — " The Confiscation Act referred to, was 
unfortunately authentic. Mr. Jay, in after life, often spoke of it 
with strong indignation. He regarded the dispute with Britain as 
one in which men might conscientiously take opposite sides ; and 
while he was ever ready to take all proper measures for preventing 
the loyalists from injuring the American cause, he abhorred the idea 
of punishing them for their opinions. His wish was that no estate 
should be confiscated except such as belonged to those who had 
been either perfidious or cruel. By the act alluded to, many were 
attainted who had been perfectly inoffensive, and he believed ^no 
tives of avarice had led to their proscription. He always declined 
purchasing any property that had been confiscated by this law." 

On reference to this confiscation act, page 580 of this work, we 
find that the estates of the following ladies were forfeited for opin- 
ion's sake, viz., Margaret Inglis, Susannah Robinson, and Mary 
Morris. 

We take leave of Mr. Adams with the single remark that he 
is probably almost the only person conversant w-ith our history that 
could not now join Mr. Gallatin in the noble sentiment he uttered 



vili PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 

in the Legislative Halls of Pennsylvania more than three score 
years ago, when advocating a bill which permitted the loyalist 
refugees to return, viz., " If patriotism be a virtue, loyalty is no 
less so." 

We close our preface by stating that the extent of the trans- 
gression of these loyalists was their retreat from troubles which, to 
their foreboding minds, were fast approaching. This was con- 
strued into high treason, and for it they were attainted, pro- 
scribed as conspirators, their property confiscated, and themselves 
banished. They maintained their allegiance to the government 
de facto and de jure, and obeyed the only law^s then in force ; and 
were absentees long before a government to which treason could 
apply had been created. 

No men were more sensible than these refugees of the nature 
and extent of the grievances of which the colonists had cause tc 
complain, but were of opinion that redress might have been ob- 
tained without an appeal to arms. 

G A. WARD. 

New-York, August 1, 1844 



PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. 



The very flattering encouragement given by friends at the 
South has called forth this edition, which comprises much iditicn- 
al matter relating exclusively to Southern Loyalists and the revo- 
lutionary movements in that quarter. 

The progress of liberal opinions towards the Loyalists has Ta"; 
surpassed the anticipations of the Editor when he first braved pc^; 
ular prejudice by pressing their claims upon the public. And 
nowhere has this been more apparent than in the pages of the 
North American Review. This distinguished journal for October 
last entirely recants the sentiments expressed in the first review of 
this work of January 1843, and contains amongst others the follow- 
ing remarks : 

" And be the popular sentiment now what it may, we cannot 
doubt that Harrison Gray, Peter Van Schaick, Richard Salstontall, 
and hundreds of others, were actuated by a purer and stronger love 
of country, than were many who will go down to posterity as true 
and sound-hearted patriots. Men who give up home, who separate 
themselves from kindred, who surrender all the happiness and ex- 
pectations of life in order to become exiles, — if of distinguished 
private worth, — are never to be stigmatized, but always to be res- 
pected and sometimes venerated. ' I will go to Worms,' said Lu- 
ther, ' though I were certain to meet as many devils as there are 
tiles upon the houses.' Impelled by a sense of duty as high and as 
holy as this, some of the Loyalists abandoned their firesides to brave 
perils as alarming to them as any which beset the path of that 
great reformer. Why did you come here, when you and your 



X PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. 

associates were almost certain to endure the sufferings and absolute 
want of shelter and food which you have narrated 1 asked an 
American gentleman of one of the first settlers of St. Johns, New 
Brunswick, a man whose life, which has just ended, was without a 
stain. ' Why did we come here /' replied he, with emotion which 
brought tears — * For our loyalty ! Think you that our principles 
were not as dear to us as yours to you V Will not even the 
prejudiced own that faithfulness to conscience is always a great 
virtue — never a sin 1 

" Those who have not been at the pains to investigate will be 
surprised to learn that the opponents of the revolution were power- 
ful in all the thirteen colonies ; and that in some of them they 
weft' nearly if not quite equal in number to its friends. * * * 
* * Of Massachusetts it may be remarked, that a large 
proportion of her people who opposed the revolution were persons 
of consideration, and many of them were eminent for virtue, were 
blessed with fine talents, and afterwards obtained distinguished pla- 
ces m the annals of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. The divi- 
sion of parties in Connecticut, Rhode Island and New Hampshire, 
was much the same as Massachusetts. New-York was the strong 
hold of the loyalists, and contained more of them than any other 
colony. In some of the southern colonies, the loyalists were al- 
most as numerous as in New-York, while in all they comprised a 
most formidable body. 

" That there were occasions when the royal generals obtained 
twelve or fifteen hundred recruits among the inhabitants, merely by 
issuing a call upon them to stand to their 'allegiance" — that " all 
who calmly examine the events which led to General Lincoln's 
surrender of Charleston, must be satisfied that the inhabitants of 
the city and vicinity, as a body, preferred that both the American 
array and the city should fall into British hands ;" — that " few of 
the Carolinians would enlist under the American banner; but after 
the capitulation they flocked to the royal standard by hundreds. 

" It may be asked ' why, when the oppressions of the mother 
country w^ere so flagrant and apparent, there was no greater 
unanimity than from what we have now said appears to have ex- 
isted ; and why a party so large in numbers, which in many colo- 
nies included persons so respectable and hitherto so universally 



PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. XI 

esteemed, was seemingly, or in fact, averse to breaking away from 
British dominion V 

" It has been answered, that few foresaw the issue to which the 
quarrel must come. It has been said also, that those who received 
the name of Tories were not at first, nor indeed for some years, 
resisting a revolution, but striving to preserve order, and an obser- 
vance of the rights of person and property ; that many who .took 
sides at the outset as mere conservators of the peace, were de- 
nounced by those whose purposes they thwarted, and were finally 
compelled in pure self-defence to accept royal protection. 

"Again, it has been stated that had the naked question of inde- 
pendence been discussed at the beginning, and before minor and 
in many cases local events had shaped their course, many who 
were driven forth to live and die as aliens and outcasts, would have 
terminated their career far differently. That there is force in these 
replies, the unprejudiced minds of this generation should be frank 
enough to admit. 

" The wise man of Israel said, ' A brother offended is harder 
to be won than a strong city, and their contentions are like the 
bars of a castle.' That many were needlessly ' offended' by the 
doings of persons who took to themselves the sacred names of 
' sons of liberty,' we shall not hesitate to declare. What ' broth- 
er,' upon whose vision the breaking up of the colonial system, and 
the sovereignty of America had not dawned, and who saw, as even 
the Whigs professed to see, with the eyes only of a British subject, 
was ' to be won' over to the right by the arguments of mobbing^ 
tarring, burning, and smoking ? Did the cause of human ' free- 
dom' gain strength by the deeds of the five hundred who mobbed 
Sheriff" I'yng, or by the speed of the hundred and sixty on horse- 
back who pursued Commissioner Hallowell 1 Were the shouts of 
an excited multitude, and the crash of broken glass and demolished 
furniture, fit requiems for the dying Ropes ? Were Whig interests 
promoted because one thousand men shut up the courts of law in 
Berkshire, and five thousand did the same in Worcester, and mobs 
drove away the judges at Springfield, Taunton and Plymouth ? 
Because in one place a judge was stopped, insulted and threatened ; 
in another the whole bench were hissed and hooted, and in a third 
were required to do penance, hat in hand, in a procession of attor- 



XII PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. 

neys and sheriffs? Did the driving oflngersoll from his estate, of 
Edson from his house, aiid the assault upon the house of Gilbert, 
and the shivering of Sewall's windov^^s, serve to wean them or their 
friends from their allegiance ? Did Ruggles, when subsequent 
events threw his countrymen into his power, forget that the crea- 
tures which grazed his pastures had been painted, shorn, maimed 
and poisoned — that he had been pursued on the highway day and 
night — that his house had been broken open, and his family had 
been driven from it ? What Tory turned Whig because Saltonstall 
was mobbed, and Oliver plundered, and Leonard shot in his own 
house ? Was the kingly arm actually weakened or strengthened 
for harm, because thousands surrounded the mansions of high func- 
tionaries, and forced them into resignation ; or because sheriffs were 
told that they would perform their duties ai the risk of their lives 1 
Which party gained by waylaying and insulting at every corner 
the ' Rescinders," ' Protesters,' and the ' Addressers V Which by 
burning the mills of Putnam ? Had the widows and orphans no 
additional griefs because the Probate courts were closed by the 
laultitude, and their. officers were driven under British guns? Did 
it serve a good end'to endeavor to hinder Tories from getting ten- 
ants, or to prevent) persons who owed them from paying honest 
debts ? On whose cheek should have been the blush of shame 
when the habitation of the aged and feeble Foster was sacked, and 
he had no shelter but the woods — when Williams, as infirm as he, 
was seized at night, dragged away for miles and smoked in a room 
with fastened doors and a closed chimney top 1 What father who 
doubted, wavered and doubted still, whether to join or fly, deter- 
mined to abide the issue in the land of his birth, because foul words 
were spoken to his daughters, or because they were pelted when 
riding or moving in the innocent dance ? 

" It may be well to remark that these outrages were committed 
before the shedding of blood, and while both parties occupied, os- 
tensibly at least, common ground ! We have seen enough of the 
operations and tendencies of the colonial system, modified even as 
it now is, to enteitain for it the heartiest abhorrence. But the 
mobs, and the warfare waged against persons at their own homes, 
about their lawful avocations, in order to overthrow it, are to be 
severely and unconditionally condemned. * * * * 



PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. XIU 

***** The whigs not only dealt harshlywith many 
and unjustly with some of their opponents, but they doomed to mis- 
ery others, whose hearts and hopes had been as true as those of 
Washington himself. ********** 
We repeat, that we cannot condemn too often, or too severely, 
every act which punished men in any form, or to any extent, for 

opinion's sake — which denied to all the right of conscience. 

*********** 

"How ill-judged were the steps that drove the loyalists to the 
hitherto neglected possessions of the British crown ! Nova Scotia 
had been won and lost, and lost and won, in the struggles between 
France and England; and the blood of Nevir England had been 
poured out upon its soil like water. * * * The loyalists should 
have been suffered to remain in the land of their birth. Most of 
them would have easily fallen into respect for the new state of 
things and obedience to the new laws, and long before this time all 
would have mingled with the mass." 

The Editor is convinced that a true history of the revolution 
and the events immediately preceding it, only are wanting to render 
full justice to the losing party in that great political contest ; that 
from ignorance alone have proceeded most of the prejudices against 
the loyalists — and to him it is a great source of satisfaction that 
his labors in their behalf have not been in vain. 

G. A. WARD. 
Mw-York, May 1, 1845. 



CONTENTS. 



INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR. 

His ancestry, birth, and education — visits Europe — returns and engages 
in commerce at Salem — ^joins the expedition against Louisburg 
— extracts from his journal during the campaign — an account of the 
expedition — appointed impost officer for Essex county — literary 
clubs at Salem — affairs in Massachusetts before the Revolution — 
difficulties with the governors Bernard, Hutchinson, and Gage — 
commencement of the Revolution — departure of the author to Phila- 
delphia, and thence to England — his return and death — number of 
exiles from Massachusetts, .... pp. 9-24. 

JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 

CHAPTER I. A. D. 1775-1776.— Causes of the author's departure— 
his arrival in Philadelphia — state of affairs in that city — perplexities 
of the author — he meets Col. Washington — reception of Hancock 
and Adams — the author sails for England— arrives at Dover — pro- 
ceeds to London — dines in company with Mrs. Copley, mother of 
Lord Lyndhurst— Samuel Q,uincy, Jonathan Sewall, Benjamin Pick- 
man — letters to Rev. Thomas Barnard, William Pynchon, &c.— dines 
with Gov. Hutchinson— visits Bow-street, Hampton Court, Windsor, 
Twickenham, Nev/ington, &c. — destruction of Falmouth (now Port- 
land), Maine— New England Club in London— meets Sir Francis 
Bernard — attends oratorio of Messiah at Covent Garden — lecture at 
Salters' Hall by Dr. Price— visits Chapter House — doomsday book 
— Portuguese synagogue — West's pictures— Tylney House— Lord 
Mansfield's seat of Caen Wood— great bed of Ware— Rye House 
—Westminster Hall— Maddock's garden— Pinchbeck's— Boar's-head 
tavern— British museum— Duke of Bedford's seat at Croydon— Rev. 
Dr. Apthorp— Rev. Mr. Peters, ... pp. 25-64. 

CHAPTER II. A. D. 1776.— Leaves London for the country— visits 
Salisbury — Stonehenge — Exeter — Sidmouth — Rev. Isaac Smith — 
letter from Thomas Danforth— visits Bristol— Birmingham— Tewks- 
bury — Gloucester— returns to Bristol — Ratcliff church — Admiral 
Penn— Clifton grotto— Shepton Mallet— Lord Arundel's seat— cabi- 
net of Pope Sixtus v.— Alfred's tower— spinning-jenniee, pp. 64-81, 

1 



VI CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER III. A. D. 1776.— Visits Bath— Meets Col. Saltonstall and 
Mr. Boylston— Longleat, seat of Lord Weymouth— Glastonbury Ab- 
bey ruins — Bridgewater — Enmore Castle, seat of Earl Egmont — 
Taunton— Sidmouth—Slade— Dr. Shebbeare— supposed Danish en- 
campment at Hembury— Admiral Graves— Exeter— news from New- 
York in Bristol Gazette— election of member of parliament at Exe- 
ter, candidates Baring and Cholwich— visits Lord Courtenay's Bel- 
videre — birth-place of Sir Francis Drake — news from America — ru- 
mors of war between England and France— electioneering in Eng- 
land—remarks on election at Exeter— Baring elected— advices from 
Gen. Burgoyne— report of Washington's defeat at Kingsbridge— re- 
marks on the tone of Englishmen towards America, and vindication 
of the latter— letters to George Russell, WiUiam Pynchon, and 
Judge Sewall, . . ' . . . . pp. 81-95. 

CHAPTER IV. A. D. 1777.— Author completes his sixty-first year- 
remarks on the commencementof the new year — letters — Dr. Dodd's 
case — visits Plymouth — Exeter— Bristol— journey to London — en- 
gages lodgings at Brompton Row, near London— dines with Gov. 
Hutchinson— meets B. Hallowell — Thomas Russell— visits Christ 
Church Hospital — the institution described — visits Cromwell's gar- 
den, in company with Judge Sewall and Abel Willard — attends 
New England club at Mr. Blowers'— diijes with Harrison Gray — 
letter to Rev. Isaac Smith on American affairs, . pp. 95-108. 

CHAPTER V. A. D. 1777. Journey from London to Ipswich, in com- 
pany with Judge Sewall and Abel Willard — passes through Rum- 
ford, Ingatestone, Witham, Colchester — description of Colchester — 
Roman antiquities — arrival at Ipswich — anunpleasingtown — leaves 
it for Cambridge — Newmarket races — description of Trinity College- 
river Cam — University library — returns to London — journey to Ox- 
ford — visits Q,ueen's College — Jesus' College — Merton College — 
Christ Church College — library — Allsouls — meets Sir F. Bernard — 
leaves Oxford — visits Blenheim House at Woodstock — Bicester — 
Buckingham — Stow Gardens — Lord George Germaine — Earl Tem- 
ple — Coventry — Birmingham — Leasowes of Shenstone — Hagley, 
Lord Lyttelton's estate — Hales Owen — fair — returns to Birming- 
ham, pp. 108-124. 

CHAPTER VI. A. D. 1777.— Fair at Birmingham— Soho Gardens— 
Ashton Park — the author leaves Birmingham for Sheffield — first 
stage Lichfield — cathedral described — Burton — the great Staflford- 
sbire canal — Derby silk mills — poreclain manufactory — Kiddlestone, 
seat of Lord Scarsdale — Ashburn — residence of Chaucer — Castle- 
ton— remarkable cave described — arrival at Sheffield— colliery— 



CONTENTS. Vii 

Wakefield— original of Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield named John- 
son — Leeds — Armley— Huddersfield — Halifax — a great manufactur- 
ing town— Rochdale — Manchester — Duke of Bridgewater's canal — 
St. John's church — coal mines at Worsley — description of Manches- 
ter— journey to Bristol— Stockport — Macclesfield— Leek— manufac- 
tories — Sandon-StafTord-Penkridge— Wolverhampton — manufac- 
lories-Stourbridge—Bromesgrove— Worcester— Cathedral describ- 
ed— Tewksbury— Gloucester— Newport— Bristol, pp. 124-142. 

CHAPTER VII. A. D. 1777.— Entry of member of parliament elect 
into Bristol— the author visits the cathedral— Stapleton—Dundry 
tower — Bath — American privateers in St. George's Channel — visit 
to Wales — Swansea — Welsh customs — Neath — Cowbridge— Car- 
diff— Newport — return to Bristol — advices I'rom New- York — adven- 
ture of Charles II. — Dean Tucker — John Wesley — journey to Exe- 
ter — Sidmouth — Axrninster — birth-place of the great Duke of Marl- 
borough — carpet manufactories — Thorncombe — Cullifbrd — Slade — 
Ottery — return to Exeter — news of Gen. Burgoyne's surrender — 
close of the year, .... pp. 142-162. 

CHAPTER VIII. A. D. 1778.— Letter on American affairs- enumera- 
tion of troops to be sent to America — Lord Abington's motion — pas- 
sage from Dr. Robertson — ceremony of installing a bishop — writers 
in the Spectator — amount of captures by American privateers — Rev. 
Sir Henry Trelawney — political letters — report of a treaty be- 
tween France and the United States — war between England and 
France, . . . . . . pp. 162-181. 

CHAPTER IX. A. D. 1778.— Letter to Judge Sewall on public affairs 
— remarks on ability of England to sustain a war with France — pub- 
lic credit — number of troops sent to America — French medal in 
honor of Washington — commissioners to settle the dispute with 
America — Massachusetts exclusion bill — excursion to Tiverton — the 
author removes his lodgings from Exeter to Sidmouth — ride to 
Taunton — Colyton — Woodbury castle, the remains of a Danish fort 
— ordination of Rev. Isaac Smith at Sidmouth — procession of lace- 
makers at Honiton, .... pp. 181-198. 

CHAPTER X. A. D. 1778.— Excursion to the west— Otterton— 
Lympstone — Teignmouth — Newton Bushel — Dartmouth — Torbay 
— Bridgtown — Chudleigh — Exeter — returns to Sidmouth — visits 
beach at Axminster — letters on public affairs — excursion to Wey- 
mouth and Portland — Melcomb Regis — island of Portland described 
— Roman remains — Dorchester — advices from New-York — quits 
Sidmouth for Exeter— Arden's course of lectures on experimental 



VIU CONTENTS. 

philosophy — letter from Judge Sewall — number of ships taken by 
the French — votes of the bishops on the American war — the author 
completes his sixty-third year, . . . pp. 198-212. 

CHAPTER XI. A. D. 1779. — Origin of custom of making presents on 
New Year's day — letters on public affairs — British fleet at Torbay — 
Lord North announces departure of Spanish minister— ordination at 
Lympstone — combined fleet of France and Spain off" Plymouth — 
author suspected of being an American spy — leaves Exeter for Bris- 
tol — dines with Mr. Vassall — Dr. Gardiner — Captain Carpenter 
arrives with letters, etc., from Salem — Mrs. Erving — William Ca- 
bot, . . . . . . pp. 212-229. 

CHAPTER XII. A. D. 1780.— Manilla ship described— visit to Bath 
— letters — Mr. Washington, a Moravian preacher — celebration of 
Admiral Rodney's victory over Don Langara — death of William 
Hutchinson — number of Americans at Bristol, and their names — 
remarks on the theatre — on public affairs — advices from General 
Clinton in South Carolina — his success — tour to the north in com- 
pany with the Sewalls — Newport — Newton — Honiton — Kiddermin- 
ster — Brosely — Shrewsbury — residence of Samuel Porter — Elles- 
mere — Wrexham — Chester — Warrington — canal locks at Runcorn 
— Liverpool — Peak of Derbyshire — Derby — Wolverhampton — iron 
bridge at Brosely — curious celebration of Gen. Clinton's success 
at Charleston by S. Sewall — passage on the Severn from Bridge- 
north to Worcester — adventure with a footpad — return to Bristol — 
riots described in letter to W. Pynchon — leaves Bristol for London 
— amusing sign at Devizes — arrival in London, . pp. 229-262. 

CHAPTER XIIL A. D. 1780.— Letter to Judge Sewall giving an ac- 
count of the reported dark day in America — reply of Sewall — visit 
to ruins of King's Bench prison and Surrey Bridewell, destroyed by 
mob — remarks on the evil of French troops in America — opening of 
Bartholemew fair by the Lord Mayor at Smithfield — Richmond gar- 
dens — elections in London — Saddler's Wells — Plowden's funeral 
monument at the Temple — Roman coins — disputing club — excursion 
to Hempsted, . , . . . pp. 262-285. 

CHAPTER XIV. A. D. 1780.— Visit to Parliament-house— Ladies' 
disputing society — Guildhall meeting — Lord Mayor's day — chancery 
court — Essex House chapel — Rev. Mr. Lindsay — Carlisle House — 
Montague House — British Museum — lottery drawing at Guildhall 
— disputing club — affair of Major Andre — Mr. Copley's picture-room 
— paintingof death of Lord Chatham, etc. . . pp. 285-298. 



CONTENTS. IX 

CHAPTER XV. A. D. 1781.— Description of entertainment at Covent 
Garden theatre — letters — American Academy of Arts and Sciences 
founded in Massachusetts — trial of Lord George Gordon — visit to 
Priory, Clerkenwell — Greenwich Hospital — Mrs. Cowley's new play 
— Col. now Governor Browne — House of Commons — debate — Mr. 
Burke — visit to Westminster Abbey — Mary-le-bone — Dr. Priestley — 
British Museum — curiosities seen there — Benj. Thompson, (Count 
Rumford,) — intercepted letter of General Washington — excursion to 
Windsor — personal description of the King and Q,ueen — Eton Col- 
lege — Chiswick House — news of the burning of New London — Ad- 
miral Rodney's fleet at Torbay — consequences of surrender of 
Lord Cornwallis — Henry Laurens discharged from the tower on 
bail, ...... pp. 298-330. 

CHAPTER XVI. A. D. 1782.— Letters— visit to the Queen's house- 
domestic habits of the King — letter from Judge Oliver — secret ser- 
vice list for 1781 — General Burgoyne — Welsh procession — disgrace 
of Lord George Germaine — defeat of ministers — general rejoicing in 
England — Lord Surrey and Benedict Arnold — new ministry — anec- 
dote of the Prince of Wales — Lord Nortli — excursion to Hampton 
Court — division in the cabinet — Admiral Barrington — news of the 
defeat of the French fleet by Admiral Rodney — Maddocks the florist 
— anecdote of the Shakspeare mug — Parson Wiswall — new arrange- 
ment of the ministry — visit to House of Commons — Parson Peters — 
Sir William Pepperell — Lord Howe — Sterne's private character — 
public notice of a provisional treaty between England and the 
United States — state of parties — Sir William Draper, pp. 330-362. 

CHAPTER XVn. A. D. 1783.— Meeting of refugees at Sir Wm. Pep- 

perell's — death of Mr. Flucker — uncertain prospects of the loyalists — 
Dr. Graham's lecture on health — meeting of the Royal Society 
described — public affairs — procession in honor of Fox — Mrs. Siddons 
at Drury-lane — visit to tlie House of Lords — Mr. deBerdt — excursion 
to Herts — Hoddesdon — letters — St. Giles's — peace proclaimed with 
France, Spain, and Holland — Nathaniel Gorham — Macklin at Covent 
Garden, ...... pp. 362-396. 

CHAPTER XVin. A. D. 1784.— Pitt's East India bill lost— the author 
receives letters from Salem encouraging his return — riots in London 
between followers of Pitt and Fox — Dr. Watson, bishop of Llandaff"- 
letters from William Pynchon — funeral of Slieriff Turner — letter 
from Judge Sewall — the author's petition for leave to return to 
America, and to appoint an agent to receive his pension — visit to the 
Treasury — preparations for leaving England — embarks in ship 
Union — fellow-passengers — land at Cowes, Isle of Wight — excursion 
on the island — arrival at Boston — Captain Coombs — the author's 
classmates — letter from Noah Clap, . . pp. 396-419. 



CONTENTS 



SUPPLEMENT. 

U,LUSTRATIVE DOCUMENTS. PAGE 

Address of ihe merchants and others of Boston to Governor Hutch- 
inson, May 10, 1774, ..... 

Address of the inhabitants of Marblehead to the same, May 
25, 1774, 

Address of the barristers and attornies of Massachusetts to the same, 
May 30, 1774, 

Recantations of several, of the Salem " addressers," May 30, 1774, 429 

Address of the merchants and others of Salem to Governor Gage, 
June 24, 1774, ...... 

Names of the gentlemen and principal inhabitants of Boston who 
signed an address to the same, Oct. 16, 1775, 

Names of gentlemen driven into Boston, who signed a loyal address 
to the same, October 14, 1775, .... 

Conspirators act of Massachusetts, Sept. 30, 1779, 

Confiscation act of do., April 30, 1779, 

Banishment act of do., Sept. 1778, 

Counsellors of do., appointed -by writ of mandamus, 

August 9, 1774, ...... 

Worcester (Massachusetts), Resolutions respecting refugees and ab- 
sentees, May 19, 1783, (referred to in page 382,) . 

List of inhabitants who left Boston with the British troops in 1776, 444 a 

List of such as died in exile from Massachusetts from 1776 to 1783, 444 d 

Confiscation act of New-York, 1779 .... 580 



423 



426 



427 



431 

432 

434 
434 
436 
443 

438 

444 



Adams, John 


. 460 


Adams, Samuel 


. 459 


Allen, Judge William 


. 486 


Apthorp, Rev. Dr. East 


. 533 


Auchmuty, Rev. Dr. Samuel 511 


Auchmuty, Judge Robert . 511 


B. 




Badger, Rev. Moses 


. 551 


Barclays of New-York 


. 596 


Baring, Sir Francis 


. 541 


Bernard, Sir Francis 


. 453 


Bernard, Sir Thomas 


. 524 


Bliss, Daniel . 


. 518 


Bliss, Jonathan 


. 508 


Blowers, Judge S. S. 


. 4S0 


Borland, John L. . 


. 500 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 

Boutineau, James . . . 492 

Boylston, Ward Nicholas . 466 

Brattle, Major Thomas . 510 

Brinley, Thomas . . . 484 

Browne, Colonel William . 500 

Burgoyne, General John . 469 

Byles, Rev. Mather . . 494 

C. 

Carleton, General Sir Guy . 468 

Caswell, Richard . . . 484 

Chandler, Nathaniel . . 550 

Chandler, Rufus . . .522 

Chandler, William . . 551 

Chipman, Judge Ward . . 492 

Clarke, Rev. William . . 499 

Clarke, Richard . . .505 

Clinton, Gen. Sir Henry . 473 



CONTENTS. 



TLl 



PAGE 

Coffin, Nathaniel . . .484 
Coffin, Thomas Aston . . 552 
Golden, Gov. Cadwallader . 537 
Cooper, Rev. Dr. Myles 538, 579 
Copley, John S. . . . 503 
Cornwallis, General Lord . 473 
Curwen's^ ancestors . . 445 
Curtis, Charles . . . 531 
dishing, Governor Thomas . 460 

D. 

Dana, Judge Francis . . 476 

Danforth, Thomas . . 515 

De Grasse, Count Joseph . 543 

Dorchester, Lord . . 468 

Draper, Sir William . . 525 



H. PAGE 

Hallovi^ell, Benjamin . . 518 

Hancock; John . . . 457 

Haraden, Captain J. , . 592 

Harrison, Gov. Benjamin . 462 

Hawley, Major Joseph . . 504 

Hewes, Joseph . . . 485 

Holyoke, Dr. E. A. . . 489 

Hooper, Joseph . . . 467 

Hovey, Ivory . . . 560 

Howe, Admiral Lord . 473 

Howe, General Sir William . 474 

Hutchinson, Elisha . . 502 

Hutchinson, Judge Foster . 547 

Hutchinson, Gov. Thomas . 454 

Hutchinson, Thomas, Jr. . 499 

Hutchinson, WiUiam . . 503 



E. 
Edson, Colonel Josiah . 
Erving George 
Erving, Colonel John, Jr. 



L 

547 IngersoU, Hon. Jared . . 502 

524 Jeffries, Dr. John . . .537 

493 Jackson, Hon. Jonathan . 528 



F. 

Faneuil, Benjamin . . 492 

Fenton, Captain John . . ^93 

Fisher, John .... &07 

Flucker, Thomas . . . 506 

Franklin, Gov. WiUiam . 552 

Frye, Colonel Peter . . 513 



Lee, Judge Joseph 
Leonard, Daniel . 
Lloyd, Dr. James . 
Loring, Com. Joshua 
Lovell, Rev. Benjamin 
Lynde, Judge Benjamin 



487 
548 
517 
523 
552 
490 



G. 

Galloway, Joseph . 
Gardiner, Dr. Sylvester 
Gates, General Horatio . 
Germaine, Lord George 
Goodhue, Hon. Benjamin 
Gorham, Hon. Nathaniel 
Gray, Hon. Harrison 
Green, Joseph 
Green. Francis 
Greenleaf, Stephen 
Gridley, Benjamin 
Gridley, Colonel Richard 



M. 

527 Marston, Benjamin . . 543 
535 Mauduit, Jasper . . . 466 
475 Mauduit, Israel . . .466 
524 Mifflin, Governor Thomas . 485 
488 Moulton, Colonel Jeremiah . 451 
532 Murray, Colonel John . . 492 
506 

465 O. 

499 Oliver, Brindley S. , . 550 

497 Oliver, Daniel . . . 510 

528 Oliver, Dr. Peter . , .511 
452 Oliver, Governor Andrew . 462 



xu 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Oliver, Governor Thomas . 515 

Oliver, Judge Andrew . . 488 

Oliver, Judge Peter . . 516 

Oliver, Peter, Jr. . . . 551 

Orne, Timothy . . .504 

Otis, Hon. S. Allyne . . 535 

Oxnard, Edward . . .508 

P. 

Paine, Judge Robert T. . 461 

Paine, Dr. William . . 551 

Paxton, Charles . . . 537 

Pepperell, Gen. Sir William 449 

Pepperell, Sir William . . 526 

Pepperells of Kittery . . 581 

Phips, Colonel David . . 527 

Porter, Samuel . . . 510 

Peters, Rev. Dr. Samuel A. . 504 

Pickering, Hon. Timothy . 477 

Pickman. Colonel Benjamin . 512 

Poynton, Captain Thomas . 515 

Prince, Dr. John . , .467 

Putnam, Judge James . . 514 

Putnam, James, Jr. . . 552 

Pynchon, William . . 487 

a. 

Q,uincy, Hon. Samuel . 463, 561 



Reed, General Joseph . . 486 

Robie, Thomas . . .491 

Robinsons of New-York . 593 

Ropes, Judge Nathaniel , 490 

Routh, Richard . . .493 

Rogers, Samuel . . . 543 

Rogers, Jeremiah D. . . 552 

Royal, General Isaac . . 523 

Ruggles, General Timothy , 508 

Rumford, Count . . . 497 

Russell; Judge Chambers . 516 

Russell, Dr. Charles . . 513 



S. PAGE 

Sackville, Lord . . . 525 

Saltonstall, Col. Richard . 548 

Sargent, John . . . 492 

Sewall, Judge Jonathan . 463 

Sevvall, Samuel . . . 50G 

Shippen, Dr. William . .485 

Shirley, Gov. William . . 450 

Simpson, Jonathan . . 493 

Smith, Judge William . . 501 

Smith, Rev. Isaac • . . 465 

Sparhawk, Samuel H. . . 497 



Temple, Robert . . . 497 

Thompson, Benjamin . . 497 

Troutbeck, Rev. J. . .511 

U. 

Upham, Judge Joshua . . 519 



Vassall, John . . . 515 

Vassall, William . . .547 
Vaughan, Col. William . 452 



W. 

Waldo, Francis . . . 518 

Ward, Richard . . .533 

Waterhouse, Samuel . . 513 

Wilkins, Rev. Dr. Isaac . 555 

Willard, Abel . . .521 

Willard, Colonel Abijah . 520 

Wentworth, Gov. Sir John . 501 

Williams, Elijah . . .528 

Williams, Seth . . .543 

Win slow, Edward, Jr. . . 543 

Winslow, Pelham . . . 548 

Winthrop, Admiral Robert . 528 

Winthrop, Gov. Thos. L. . 531 

Wiswall, Rev. John . .511 



CONTENTS. 



XIU 



THE PRESENT EDITION CONTAINS THE FOLLOWING ADDITIONAL 
MATTER, VIZ. 

PAGE 

Strictures on the received History of the Revolution in the South, 618 
Vindication of Col. Browne, a Georgian Loyalist, against atrocities 

charged upon him in our history, 649 

List of Officers who declined signing the Articles of Association 
when offered them by the General Committee of the Revolu- 
tionists, 668 

List of the Loyalists proscribed by the General Assembly of South 

Carolina, 670 

" " Citizens who congratulated Sir Henry Clinton on the 

fall of Charleston, ....... 671 

" " Citizens who served as volunteers in the Royal Militia. 671 
" " Citizens who congratulated Gen. Earl Cornwallis, 672 
•' " Those who held Commissions under the Royal Gov- 
ernment, 672 

^ " Those who avowed their allegiance to His Britannic 
Majesty and manifested themselves inveterate ene- 
mies to the State, ....... 672 



BIOGRAPHIC NOTICES, 

Browne, Col. Thomas of Georg-ia, . 
Bull, Gov. William, of South Carolina, . 
Cunningham, Col. Patrick, of South Carolina, 
" Gen. Robert, do. 

" Major William, do. 

Drayton, Hon. William Henry, do. 

Fairfax, Bryan (Lord) of Virginia, 

" George William, do. 

« Hon. Col. William, do. 

« Thomas, (Lord) do. 
Hopton, John, Esq. of South Carolina. 
Hume, Hon. John of Georgia, 
Jones, Admiral John Paul, of Virginia, . 
Leigh, Sir Egerton Bart, of South Carolina, 
Pickens, General, .... 

Powell, Col. Robert William, of South Carolina, 
Stokes, Hon. Anthony, of Georgia, . 
Stuart, Hon. John, of South Carolina, 
Tennent, Rev. Wm. do. 

Wragg, Hon. Wm. do. 

Wright, Sir James, Bart., Governor of Georgia, 
Zubly, John J., D. D. of Georgia, . 



648 
657 
618 
637 
638 
661 
603 
602 
601 
605 
663 
664 
611 
659 
662 
662 
664 
659 
660 
665 
658 
664 



INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 



The paternal ancestry of Samuel Curwen, the author of the 
Journal and Correspondence now submitted to the public, were for 
many centuries amongst the leading families in the county of Cum- 
berland, in the north of England, where the family seat, named 
Workington Hall, still remains. George Curwin, his immediate 
ancestor, was an early emigrant to New England, having established 
his residence in 1638 at Salem, in the then recent colony of Massa- 
chusetts Bay, where he continued to reside during the residue of a 
long life. He was highly esteemed by his contemporaries, for his 
active and energetic character, and for several years represented 
his adopted town in the " General Court," or legislative assembly 
of the colony. He also commanded a squadron of horse in the 
Indian wars that spread desolation throughout the frontier settle- 
ments of New England, and assisted in checking the inroads of the 
savage foe. He died at Salem in 1685, at the age of seventy-four 
years, leaving a large estate. His son, Jonathan Corwin,* was of 
the provincial council named in the Massachusetts charter granted 
by William and Mary in 1691, and a judge of the superior court 
of the province; he married a daughter of Sir Henry Gibbs. 
George Curwin, a fruit of this connection, was the father of our 
author : he graduated at Harvard College, (then the only collegiate 
institution in British America,) in 1701, and was for a short period 
pastor of a church at Salem. He died in 1717, at the early age 
of thirty-five years. 

* The orthography of this name, like that of many others, seems to have 
varied at different periods, both in England and America ; our author after 
his visit to England wrote it Curwen. 

2 



10 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIB. 

The subject of this memoir was born in 1715, and graduated 
at Harvard College in 1735 ; he subsequently pursued the usual 
course of preparatory studies for the church, but his health prov- 
ing inadequate to the labours of the profession, he was obliged to 
relinquish the design. Disappointment in an affair of the heart 
induced him to travel in England and on the Continent, and the 
following letter to his only brother, then temporarily absent, 
shows the melancholy state of his mind at that time. 

TO GEORGE CURWIN. 

, Saletn, 16th July, 1738. Sunday evening. 

Dear George : 

It will no doubt be somewhat surprising and unexpected to hear 
of my being gone, especially at such a time as this, the reason of 
which may not perhaps be so proper to tell you by letter; but if I 
could have had the happiness of informing you more fully in person, 
I should have done so. Besides the extreme hurry and other con- 
curring circumstances forbid it. Had I not engaged too far to 
retreat, I know not whether the various rumours spread abroad had 
not stopped me. Yet extremities, you know, often dispose one to 
that which otherwise would not have been undertaken. To say 
no more, T am gone, and God alone, the sovereign disposer of all 
things, knows the issue ; no human prudence is equal to the uncer- 
tainty of events. 

I have to request you never to credit the least report or give ear 
to what people say concerning me, (censure now-a-days being the 
delight as well as the chiefest quality of the generality of mankind,) 
as my affairs are not understood by any one. Show Madam 
Lynde and Mr. Benjamin Lynde all imaginable respect ; they 
have expressed much greater good will than any one else, therefore 
omit no opportunity of thanks to them and Mr. William Lynde, 
who has undertaken a great service for me. Let not any former 
misunderstandings hinder your freely conversing together ; it will, 
I can assure you, be your fault alone if it doth ; the business he has 
undertaken will necessarily lead to it, and I hope I have not chosen 
a person disagreeable to you. 

My will is in the hands of Mr. Benjamin Lynde, which I have 



INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR. 11 

made to secure the honor of the family, and if possible to maintain 
them in some repute in case of your death ; — may God long pre- 
serve you. My dealings with sundry persons have more fully than 
ever confirmed me in the maxim to treat all persons as if they were 
dishonest 5 1 mean no more than not to rely too much on their faith 
and honor ; too much good nature in common dealings is no pro- 
fitable principle now-a-days. Nor do I know whether it be a 
breach of Christian charity to suppose our New Englanders such; 
there is most certainly a contracted selfish temper in most per- 
sons, which almost inclines one to think that justice and honor 
in their full latitude are little understood. 

The time of my stay abroad, if there happens no war, is uncer- 
tain, (although I am not resolved at all hazards to gratify my 
curiosity by travelling ;) it may in that case be eight months, perhaps 
much longer ; otherwise I shall return in the same vessel. 
I am, dear George, in all respects. 

Your most affectionate brother, 

S, CURWEN. 

On his return, Mr. Curwen engaged in commercial pursuits with 
uprightness and success. His business was subsequently interrupted 
by the depredations of French cruisers, fitted out from Louisburgin 
the island of Cape Breton. New England suffered immensely in 
her commerce from the same cause, and her enterprising people 
resolved upon the reduction of that stronghold of the enemy at all 
hazards. Accordingly, we find what was generally considered a 
romantic expedition set on foot for this purpose in the winter of 
1744-5 ; and Mr. Curwen as a captain, and his brother as a com- 
missary, joined it. The command of this expedition, comprising 
some four thousand New England militia, was given to General 
Pepperell,* who having suffered largely from the depredations of 
French cruisers, advanced several thousand pounds towards the 
outfit. 

The result of the expedition was completely successful, and 
reflected great credit on the participators in it. The General was 



* See Supplement for biographical notices of Sir William Pepperell and 
other conspicuous persons whose names occur in this work. 



12 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR. 

created a baronet of Great Britain, an honor never before conferred 
on a native of the North American provinces. 

The following are extracts from Mr. Curwen's journal kept 
during the campaign. 

" Boston, March 23, 1745. The General is embarking, and 
we shall sail this afternoon. — Commodore Warren is coming to 
our assistance, which with the blessing of God will be of great 
advantage. — There will go down in the first embarkation at least 
twenty-five hundred soldiers. 

Sheepscot, March 27. We have in our mess Mr. Walter,* 
our chaplain, who is a very pleasant companion. — I dined to-day 
on board of Capt. Grant, who to-morrow with Capt. King will 
breakfast with me. — Our troops were landed at Chapeaurouge on 
the 29th March. 

Canso, April 17. Wrote home for provisions and stores to be 
sent in case the goods I expect shall arrive safe from England. — 
We are almost reduced to pork and pease. 

Our men-of-war and privateers are stationed all round the 
Island to prevent vessels going in or coming out. This evening an- 
other prize arrived, taken by Capt. Donahue, in the Swan of Mar- 
blehead, who behaved very bravely. The prize had captured the 
packet sent from Boston to Cansof to notify us that Commodore 
Warren was coming to our assistance, which heightens our 
spirits. 

Canso, April 22. Capt. Durell is come in this afternoon to 
our assistance ; as yet we have no news of Commodore W^arren ; 
hope it will not be long before he arrives with an account of the 
French men-of-war expected. Our last transport arrived this af- 
ternoon ; we had almost given her up. 

I believe our campaign will be short, and expect the place will 
surrender without bloodshed. 

Last night our chaplain and doctor went with two companies 

* Son of Rev. Nath. Walter of Roxbury ; his son Rev. Dr. William 
Walter, a proscribed refugee, became Dean of Shelburne, Nova Scotia, re- 
turned to Boston in 1792 as rector of Christ Church, and died l&OO, M. 64. 
He married a daughter of Ch. Justice Lynde. 

t Canso or Canseau was taken by the French and Indians, the houses 
were burnt and fisheries destrojed, the garrison and inhabitants made pris- 
oners, and sent to Louisburg. 



INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR. 13 

to attack St. Peter's, and we are momently looking for their return. 
I long to be once within the walls of Louisburg. This is the 
strangest country I ever knew ; not two fair days together. 

Canso, April 27. The Connecticut fleet arrived, and Col. 
Lathrop handed me my letter. The scheme of attacking Louis- 
burg is altered every day. 

Commodore "Warren has arrived. I trust the expedition will 
prove successful, and that our friends will remember we are going 
against our common enemy. May 1st, a small party went to the 
harbour and burned a small quantity of wine, brandy, and naval stores. 

Camp before Louisburg, May 6. We have got possession of 
the Grand Battery; the French departed from it three days ago; 
they spiked all the guns, but we have got seven of them clear, and 
five of them are continually playing upon the town. Our soldiers 
are all in good heart, and I doubt not in a few days we shall have 
the town. We have taken a great number of prisoners. 

Commodore W^arren this day came ashore to visit the General : 
he and all our officers have a good understanding among them- 
selves. 

Yesterday a gun at the Grand Battery split and wounded five 
of our men. They now and then throw a bomb, but do no damage. 

This morning came in Col. Moulton with his detachment from 
St. Peter's, which they have demolished with the loss of but one 
man. Providence has signally smiled, and I doubt not the cam- 
paign will be crowned with success. I am willing to undergo 
any thing for the good of our cause. 

Camp before Louisburg, May 12, 1745. Commodore W^ar- 
ren has had two hundred marines and sailors ashore for throe days 
past in order to attack the Island battery, but something or other 
has always prevented its accomplishment, so the Commodore has 
ordered them all aboard and gone on board himself not a little dis- 
satisfied. 

Camp before Loxdsburg, May 26. Commodore Warren has 
taken the Vigilante, a 64 gun ship from France, coming with am- 
munition for this garrison. She was manned with five hundred 
men, had five hundred barrels gunpowder on board: she lost 
thirty men before she struck. The command of her is given to 
Captain Douglass, who before had the Mermaid, and Capt Mon- 



14 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR. 

tague is to have the Mermaid. This has given new life to all our 

officers and soldiers. 

Capt. Gayton is safely arrived at last, which affords great joy, 

for we almost despaired of him, being out so long after all the 

transports had arrived that left under bis convoy. 

Capt. Fletcher has had the misfortune to lose ten men by the 
Indians; seven killed, and three taken prisoners. They went 
ashore ten miles above where we lay to get wood, and keeping no 
guard, were beset by the Indians and cut off. 

Camp bpfore Louisbiirg, June 2d. We have made an attempt 
upon the Island battery, and failed. Abbot, a townsman of mine, 
was wounded in the leg, and I fear he will lose his life. — An hun- 
dred men are missing, and we are in hopes they are taken, as two 
boats laden with men were seen going; into the town after the 
attack, when the French gave three hurrahs. Young Gray is 
dead, and three of Capt. Grant's men are missing, all of Salem. 
Our scouts have had an engagement with a number of French and 
Indians which we routed ; killed thirty and wounded forty ; we 
lost but six killed ; among them is the brave Capt. Dimmock, of 
Barnstable, and twenty wounded, some very dangerously. Our 
men got under the very walls before the French fired a gun. 

Louisburg, June 17th, 1745. The Governor, aware of our 
preparations for a general assault, thought it best to capitulate, and 
has just surrendered the city to our arms. 

Louisburg, July 2bth, 1745. An East India ship, worth at 
least je200,000 sterling, came off the harbour, and fired a gun for 
a pilot. The Commodore sent out two sixty gun ships, which 
came up with, and took her in three hours ; we had the pleasure 
from the walls to see her strike to them. Two others, sent out 
three weeks before her, bound hither, are hourly expected to heave 
in sight. Col. Graham goes to-morrow in a sloop as a flag of 
truce for Canada, with about thirty French prisoners ; he is the 
only Englishman that goes in her. 

I am going on board Capt. Lovett to St. Peter's, with a 
number of my soldiers, to guard the wood-vessels going there : our 
affairs will soon be settled, and I shall, to my great joy, return 
home." 



JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 14 A 

TO HENRY GIBBS, ESQ., SALEM. 

Louisburghy July 25, 1745. 
Dear Sir : 

I enclose you a rough draught of the Island-Battery, which I 
hope will afford you some pleasure. It may perhaps give you some 
idea of. the place which the day before yesterday I saw, and not 
before. I have the great pleasure to congratulate you on our con- 
tinued success, in taking a rich East India Ship, which, upon the 
ramparts, about three thousand of us saw strike to the "Princess 
Mary'' and " Canterbury" She appeared in sight on Monday, the 
23d, about middle P. M. She fired for a pilot, and was answered 
by the Island-Battery with French colors, as the ships in the har- 
bor, by the commodore's order, laid to, until the " Vigil," which is 
placed opposite the mouth, came up as a decoy. Early the next 
morning, the two ships above-mentioned went out with the white en- ' 
sign, which the Frenchman laid to for, and too late discovered her 
mistake ; for, being surrounded by the English ships, after having 
received a broadside from the "Princess Mary," she yielded with- 
out firing a gun ; her cargo cost in India about ^675,000 sterling. 
It is judged to be worth one hundred and fifty per cent, above the 
cost. She has on board thirty tons of pepper, eight hundred and 
eighty-five bales of muslin, and other very valuable commodities, 
but no tea or porcelain. 

On the 23d, Mr. Rolleau, an engin(?er, was buried in mar- 
tial order, the second of the sort since my arrival, a marine having 
been buried in this manner about a week since. The procession 
began by soldiery, with arms reversed, two and two, about twenty- 
five file, then the corpse, with a standard on the coffin, on top of 
which was placed a drawn sword. Three files before the corpse 
went two drummers, with drums unbraced, and beating with the 
butt-ends of their sticks, at proper pauses, whcih made a most sol- 
emn sound. Then went the general and suite, in a most confused, 
irregular manner. I am this day going out with a detachment of 
sixty or seventy of our regiment, as a guard to twelve sloops to St. 
Peter's for wood for the garrison, being the third piece of duty of 
the military sort. I have no more news. 



14 b 



JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 



Heartily wishing you success in business, health of body and 
tranquillity of mind, I remain your friend, and most obedient humble 
servant, Samuel Curwen. 




The embrasures on tlie front are not more tlian three feet above the ground, 

1. Fronting mouth of the harbor, 22 embrasures, 21 guns, 3G and 48 pounders. 

2. Barracks. 

3. Sally-ports. 

4. Wall framed of timber, and covered with plank, and filled with stone and 

lime, in which is an embrasure with a 48 pounder. 

5. Wall, defended with two small swivels. 

6. The place at which whale-boats might easily land 500 men. 

7. One entire rock, perpendicular on the face, and absolutely impossible to be 

climbed. 

8 Piquet of large timber, fastened by iron clamps, drilled into the solid rock 

9 Commandants' apartments, five feet high. 

10. The gate under the wall, about four feet wide, formed like a common 

sally-port, not straight, but made an angle of 160 degrees. Ten men can 

prevent ten hundred making their way ; this wall has but four guns and 

two swivels. 

I paced the island, and judged it to be about 56 yards wide and 150 long, 

at the widest part, nearly. 



INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR. 15 

FROM WILLIAM LYNDE. 

Salem, July 27, 1745. 
Capt. Curwen: 

I have had the pleasure of but one letter from you since you 
left us. — If no more East Indiamen, &c. drop in, yet a line on any 
occasion will be very agreeable. I should be glad to hear of the 
event of these ships being at Louisburg, and what effect their 
coming will have on the fleet, army, New England, the nation, 
or any particulars of them, or concerning Louisburg ; the French 
fishery, settlements on the island, &c., if not too troublesome to you. 

I hope New England will be the happier for the event of the 
expedition, which is known to have been too bold a stroke for your 
enemy — how it will turn out is doubtful, since many are competi- 
tors for the honor. We here assure ourselves of the Governor's 
good designs and influence on our part. I could say more than 
write on this article, and cannot but be sanguine for the honor of 
our country and friends, whose all was involved in the happy issue 
of the expedition. We hope daily to hear of the Governor's arri- 
val and good measures for the general advantage. The fleet 
assume their full share, from all accounts, and have much popu- 
larity ashore ; doubt not of the influence of omnipotent gold, which 
perhaps they have a greater share of, than of honor or jurisdic- 
tion on land. How you stand inclined yourself, I know not, 
though don't doubt your zeal for our country and friends. 

As to occurrences at Salem ; trade has been successful, and no 
losses ; — if the Dutch break this year, you know how it will aflfect. 
We hear from New-York and via Lisbon of some five French 
men-of-war, designing for Cape Breton ; perhaps to convoy the 
Indiamen. Undoubtedly you may expect some via Lisbon advices ; 
they say Genoa has declared for the French and Spaniards. From 
New-York they say the Duke of Tuscany is Emperor, but it is 
doubted here. I believe there is matter enough in Europe for a 
long war ; but perhaps you have later news than we. Our gov- 
ernment has declared war against the Penobscot Indians, who have 
broke in on our new settlements ; so that we are at war with all 
eastern Indians ; they are doubtless put on by the French of Canada. 
New England has enough on her hands, though the season is 
hopeful and trade brisk. Some particulars I could give verbatim; 



16 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR. 

which I cannot write ; hope to see you soon here, and spend some 
pleasant hours with you, as we have spent many past. Give my 
hearty service to your brother and Capt. Grant. My brother* de- 
sires you would excuse his not writing by this opportunity. Capt. 
Hillyer is now going to sail, having given but short notice. 
Beheve me, dear Sir, your real friend, William Lynde. 

A late writer thus describes' this expedition, which is among the 
most remarkable in our history—" The French had built a city and 
fortress on the island of Cape Breton, at immense cost, and of 
immense strength, which in honor of the King was called " Louis- 
burg." Their fisheries in the seas in its vicinity (as was ascer- 
tained by Mr. Kilby, as agent of Governor Shirley, of Massachu- 
setts), produced one million and four hundred thousand quintals 
annually, and they annoyed the colonial fishermen so much, that 
the fishing interest of Massachusetts and New Hampshire resolved on 
the destruction of Louisburg, and the expulsion of the French from 
the fishing grounds. Application was made to Gov. Shirley ac- 
cordingly, by Vaughan, a son of the Lt. Governor of New Hamp- 
shire, who was largely interested in the fisheries, and whose fisher- 
men had imparted to him valuable information as to the weak 
parts of its defences. The subject was considered in secret session, 
thejjrst ever held in the Colonies. After much difficulty, and after 
having been negatived once, it was resolved to undertake the des- 
truction of this wonderful city. But the Colonies south of New 
England declined to aid in so mad an enterprise, though urged to 
do so ; and Dr. Franklin, as if forgetting that he * was Boston born,' 
ridiculed the project, in one of the wittiest letters that he ever 
wrote. The spirit of New England was up. A feeling something 
like that which caused the Crusades, prevailed among her people, 
high and low. Religion shouted " Popery" — and even White- 
field made a recruiting house of the sanctuary ; and he not only 
preached delenda est Carthago, but one of his followers actually 
joined the troop as chaplain, and carried an axe at the shoulder, 
with which to hew down the Catholic images in the churches of 
the fated city. On sailing, the troops were furnished with line 
and other gear to catch fish on the passage. The original plan of 

* Benjamin Lynde, afterwards Chief Justice Sup, Court. 



INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR, 17 

attack was not observed, but to the surprise of all, the city fell, and 
Pepperell was rewarded most magnificently, while Vaughan, who 
claimed to have conceived its destruction, and who certainly did 
much to effect it, and was second in command and performed ex- 
traordinary feats of valor before it, was suffered to die neglected, 
though he went to London in person to press his claims. At the 
peace of 1749, Louisburg was restored to France, much to the 
displeasure of New England. In the war with France, which 
preceded the Revolution by about twenty years, it was captured 
a second time, and miners were sent from England to reduce its 
walls to rubbish. In its second capture, Wolfe distinguished him- 
self much. He sailed from this doomed city for Quebec, at the 
head of 8000 men, to rise from a sick bed, and ' die satisfied' on 
the plains which his name has made immortal. Louisburg is now 
desolate. Its walls were built of bricks brought from France. 
Twenty-five years and thirty millions of livres were spent in 
building it. It had nunneries, and palaces, and two hundred and 
six cannon were mounted to perpetuate French dominion over it. 
Six thousand troops garrisoned its fortress, and a fleet of ships of 
the line and frigates were moored in its waters. But yet, though 
all called it the " Dunkirk" of America, because of its exceeding 
strength, it fell — and now it is almost unknown that such a place 
existed. Its captors, by keeping the flag of France in its place, 
after they became its masters, decoyed and captured ships and 
cargoes worth some millions of dollars, but now, none but fishermen 
visit it, and they for shelter and not for traffick. — That such a city 
existed at so early a period in our history, is a marvel ; that such a 
city yielded to the farmers and fishermen of New England, is al- 
most incredible. The lovers of the wonderful may read the works 
which contain accounts of its rise and ruin, and be satisfied that 
* truth is sometimes stranger than fiction.' 

" The influence of the expedition to Louisburg has been felt ever 
since. When, thirty years after it, the northern colonies became 
embroiled with the mother country, many of those who belonged 
to it were still alive. The confidence which their skill and success 
inspired was incalculable. — When Gen. Gage was fortifying 
Boston neck, the American people, whose curiosity led them to 
watch the progress of the works, used to say that ' Gage's mud 

3 



18 INTKOOUGTORY MEMOIR. 

walls are nothing to old Louisburg's.' 'The drum that beat 
along the road to Lexington,' said Edward Everett, ' had been at 
Louisburg.' This is literally true. Gridley, who had laid out the 
works on Breed's or Bunker Hill, on the night previous to the 
memorable 17th of June, was the engineer of the colonial forces 
at the siege of Louisburg, — and many who rose to distinction in the 
Revolution, were associated with him in the same perilous enter- 
prise. In truth, the biographers and letters of the men of the 
Revolution, teem with incidents and allusions to this, — the great 
event of colonial history." 

Soon after Mr. Curwen's return from the reduction of Louisburg 
he resumed his mercantile pursuits, which were continued for many 
years with various success, yet he never failed in meeting all his 
engagements. — In 1759 he was appointed Impost Officer for Essex 
county, which office he filled for fifteen years, his commission being 
renewed at intervals of three years during that period. 

He was a member of a- club instituted for improvement in phi- 
losophy and literature in his native town, in which originated the 
Social Library in 1760, and the Philosophical Library, which were 
afterwards united, and became the foundation of the Athenffium, in 
1810. The meetings of this club were interrupted by the Revolution, 
but were resumed and continued many years afterwards. Among 
the members were Dr. Holyoke, who was president of several lite- 
rary and scientific societies, and died at the age of a hundred years 
and six months, in 1829; and who with the Hon. Samson S. Blowers, 
Chief Justice of Nova Scotia, now living, are the only alumni 
of Harvard University out of thirty-six hundred graduates, that 
have arrived at that great age ; Hon. Benjamin Lynde and Hon. 
Nathaniel Ropes, judges of the superior court; Hon. Andrew 
Oliver, Judge of the Common Pleas ; William Pynchon, Esq., 
an eminent lawyer ; Rev. Wm. McGilchrist and Rev. Thomas 
Barnard ; Stephen Higginson, Esq., an eminent merchant, who af- 
terwards removed to Boston ; Hon. Wm. Browne, judge of the 
superior court, afterwards Governor of Bermuda ; Col. Benjamin 
Pickman, Col. Peter Frye, and Thomas Robie, Esq. These gentle- 
men possessed literary attainments of a high order, and though ar- 
dently attached to their country, took different views of its interests. 



INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR. 19 

The four last, together with Mr. Curwen, in consequence of the 
spirit of persecution which succeeded the battle of Lexington, fear- 
ing that the high-toned conduct of the people would bring ruin on 
their country, became loyalist refugees, and retreated to England. 
A brief account of the state of affairs in the colony of Massachu- 
setts at the period immediately preceding the Revolution, may serve 
as an appropriate introduction to the parties and events referred to 
in the following pages. 

We find at the commencement of Governor Bernard's adminis- 
tration in Massachusetts, in 1760, the final reduction of the Canadas 
causing a general jubilee throughout the continent ; for the colo- 
nists had only suffered from their French and Indian neighbors, and 
these being at length completely subdued, they felt that they could 
now sit under their own vines and fig-trees, having none to molest 
or to make them afraid. They had felt the burden of government 
less than any people who had received such benefits from it ; and it 
was a common aspiration in the public prayers of the day, that the 
civil and religious privileges they enjoyed might be transmitted to 
their posterity forever. In 1763, Mr. James Otis, (afterwards the 
great leader of opposition to Gov. Bernard's measures,) in his ad- 
dress, as moderator of the first town-meeting at Boston after the 
peace, remarked, that " no other constitution of civil government 
had yet appeared in the world so admirably adapted to the preser- 
vation of the great purposes of liberty and knowledge as that of 
Great Britain. Every person in America is of common right, by 
acts of Parliament, and the laws of GoJ, entitled to all the essential 
privileges of Britons. The true interests of Great Britain and her 
colonies are mutual, and what God in his providence has united, let 
no man dare attempt to pull asunder." 

There does not appear to have been any cause for dissatisfac- 
tion in the colonies at that period, and there was no complaint of 
the invasion of the rights of the people by any of the gov- 
ernments. Soon, however, the disturbances in England reached 
America, and the cry of " Wilkes and liberty'^ in London was 
echoed in Boston, and resounded through the colonies. 

Accounts were received before the session of the legislature of 
Massachusetts in 1764, that a bill had passed the House of Com- 
mons, imposing duties on articles heretofore exempted, which af- 



20 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR. 

forded a good opportunity to bring the officers of the crown into 
disrepute, should they attempt to carry the law into efTect. All 
who were desirous of keeping up the authority of law, were branded 
with the name of tories ; their characters were assailed in the news- 
papers, and thoy were charged with promoting measures to restrict 
the natural and chartered rights and liberties of the people. The 
law was attacked by Mr. Otis in a pamphlet, in which he asks this 
question : " If taxes are laid in any shape without our having a 
legal representative where they are made, are we not reduced from 
the character of subjects to the miserable state of tributary slaves ?" 
He allows the right of parliament to tax the colonies, provided they 
are represented ; and had not the colonists soon after declared 
against it, this privilege would probably have been conceded ; for 
Mr. Grenville and many influential members of the government, 
acknowledged themselves in favor of the measure. On the passage 
of the stamp-act, there appeared a general determination to oppose 
it throughout the colonies, and Mr. Andrew Oliver, afterwards 
Lieutenant Governor, having been appointed distributor of the 
stamps for Massachusetts, a mob attacked and destroyed a building 
lately erected by him, as was supposed for a stamp-office ; on which 
he gave notice of his intention to resign, and never to act in that 
capacity. Lieut. Governor Hutchinson's house was the next eve- 
ning attacked, with little damage ; but on the 26th August, 1765, 
his windows and doors were burst in, and every article of furniture 
and property that it contained, destroyed, to the amount of twenty- 
four hundred pounds sterling, besides a great mass of public and 
private papers of inestimable value. From this time governmental 
power ceased in Boston. Smuggling had been extensively carried 
on at that port for years. In 1766 exertions were made on 
the part of government to prevent this illegal traffick by prose- 
cuting the parties concerned, which induced the most abusive 
and licentious attacks on the governor and all the officers of the 
crown. False and groundless as these charges were, they gained 
too ready a credence with the people, as they were directed against 
their rulers. At length, however, Mr. Sewall (afterwards attorney- 
general), in a series of papers signed Philanthropos, refuted the 
charges, and silenced the calumniators. 

The stamp-act v/as repealed, and the duty on molasses reduced 



INTR ODUCTORY M EMOI R. 21 

from 3d. to one penny per gallon; and for a short time, at the 
close of the year 1766, the colonies reposed in tranquillity. This 
calm was, however, interrupted the next year by the refusal of the 
Assembly of New York to submit to parliamentary authority, by 
making provision for quartering the king's troops. In 1768, the 
Governor laid before the assembly of Massachusetts a letter from 
Lord Hillsborough, secretary of state, directing him to dissolve the 
same unless an obnoxious vote, passed in February, should be re- 
scinded ; and this being refused by a vote of 92 to 17, the minority 
were ever after reproachfully termed " rescinders." In April, 1769, 
Governor Bernard received orders to embark for England ; and 
on his arrival, his conduct having met the approbation of the ad- 
ministration, he was created a baronet. He had been treated 
with great bitterness here, which however was owing in part to 
certain of his letters to England, in which he infers the necessity 
of the king's appointing a royal council instead of that elected by 
the people, and recommends an act to authorize the king to super- 
sede all commissions which had been issued to improper (i. e. dis- 
affected) persons. The destruction of the East India Company's 
tea at Boston in 1773, only was wanting by their leaders to involve 
the body of the people in the same circumstances in which their 
course of opposition measures had placed them. 

The leading principles of the Revolution, viz., a denial of the 
right of taxation by Parliament, a claim of the privilege of juries in 
admiralty courts, and the right of trial only in places where offences 
are committed, should have been allowed to rest upon the broad 
basis of their respective merits. Private letters, surreptitiously ob- 
tained in England, written by Governor Hutchinson and Lieut. 
Governor Oliver, (whose spotless lives, devoted, as they believed, 
to the best interests of their fellow men, had acquired for them an 
almost unbounded influence,) were announced with great pomp 
and circumstance by legislative resolves; and garbled extracts were 
circulated, and unjust inferences drawn, before the letters themselves 
were permitted to be printed, which would have proved a sufficient 
antidote to the poison so invidiously diffused. — The distemper, how- 
ever, was much arrested by a series of papers under the signature 
Philolethes, from the pen of Mr. Sewall, developing the disguised 
craft and fallacies which pervaded this deep contrivance, and written 



22 I N T R O D U C T O R Y M E M O I R . 

•with such moderation and candour that the calumniators thought 
it best to leave these pieces unanswered, and suffer the flame to 
die away, intending to keep the em.bers in reserve for raising a new 
flame at a more propitious time for their purposes. — Governor 
Hutchinson* had represented the transaction of the 5th of March 
1770 (commonly called the Boston massacre), in his letters to the 
secretary of state, far more favourably for the town than the evi- 
dence at the trial afterwards warranted, yet the Assembly consider- 
ed him as inimical to the province for conforming to his instructions, 
and withstanding their attempts to compel him to yield the prerog- 
ative of the crown ; and the council instead of supporting him 
sided with the House. The designs of particular persons to bring 
about a revolution and attain independency, were apparent to the 
Governor, but he did not think it possible that the people would be 
induced to declare for it. 

Under the discouragements of the times Governor Hutchinson 
determined to visit England, and have at least a temporary relief; 
but before he received an answer to his request, his able and 
estimable coadjutor, Lieut. Governor Oliver,* succumbed to the 
unwarranted attacks upon him, and fell a victim to wounded sensi- 
bility on the 3d of March, 1774. 

In a letter from the Earl of Dartmouth, granting Gov. Hutchin- 
son's wished-for permission to visit England, dated April 9, 1774, 
he says : " It is impossible you can have any doubt of the light in 
which your conduct on the late trying occasion is seen by the king 
and his servants. I cannot however content myself without repeat- 
ing to you what cannot fail to give you the strongest consolation 
and satisfaction, that it is his majesty's intention to testify his appro- 
bation of your services to all mankind by an early mark of his favor.f 
This expectation will contribute much to alleviate the anxiety 
of your mind, and to support you under any diflnculties you may 
yet have to encounter; but you will allow me to say, that to a 
mind like yours there are secret sources of tranquillity that are 
superior to such great and encouraging considerations. The con- 
scious sense which you possess of an upright and uniform regard to 

* See Supplement. 

t A baronetcy was offered Gov. Hutchinson and declined, which oughl 
to satisfy his countrymen of the uprijihtness of his political motives. 



INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR. 23 

the duty of your situation, joined to a dispassionate ard real con- 
cern for the welfare of the people over whom you preside, which 
equally appear throughout the correspondence that 1 have had 
with you, do at this moment, if I am not deceived in my opinion of 
you, supply you with that steadiness and fortitude which discover 
themselves in your firm and temperate conduct, and which under 
such support it is not in the power of the most unreasonable pre- 
judice, or even of the most inveterate malice to shake or intimidate." 

General Gage having arrived with power to administer the 
government, Governor Hutchinson sailed on the 1st of June, 1774, 
for England. Before his departure he had received addresses from 
a hundred and twenty merchants of Boston ; from all the gentle- 
men of the law, with few exceptions; from the magistrates of 
Middlesex and Plymouth, and the principal gentlemen of Salem 
and Marblehead, all expressing entire approbation of his public 
conduct and their affectionate wishes for his prosperity. These 
addresses gave great offence to the disaffected portion of the com- 
munity, and many of those who signed them, afterwards stigma- 
tized as " Addressers" were compelled by the people to make 
public recantations in the newspapers. Mr. Curwen, who had 
subscribed the Salem address, declined to obey the popular voice, 
saying that the prescribed recantation contained more than in con- 
science he could own ; and that as to live under the character of 
reproach which the fury of party might throw upon him, was too 
painful a reflection to suffer for a moment, he therefore resolved 
to withdraw from the impending storm. He accordingly embarked 
for Philadelphia, on the 23d of April, 1775, and thence for London 
on the 13th of the following month. 

Mr. Curwen had been in the commission of the peace for thirty 
years, and at the time of his departure was a Judge of Admiralty, 
in which office he was immediately succeeded by Timothy Picker- 
ing, the patriot, who afterwards so ably filled distinguished offices 
in the army, in the cabinet of Washington, and the councils of our 
country. Judge Curwen returned in the autumn of 1784, much to 
the satisfaction of his friends, and was never molested for his poli- 
tical course. 

Mr. Curwen was in early life married to a daughter of Hon. 



24 INTKODUCTORY MEMOIR. 

Daniel Russell, of Charlestovvn, and a sister of Hon. Chambers Rus- 
sell, whom he survived many years. 

He died in his native town, in April, 1802, at the advanced age 
of eighty-six years. He possessed a fine literary taste, was a 
scholar and a Christian. He left no lineal descendants; but in 
order that the name might not become extinct in New England, 
at his request just before his death, a collateral relative since 
deceased assumed it, who has left three sons residing at Salem, 
who bear the name. 

Of the families of the exiled loyalists, scattered as they have 
been over the world, it is no small matter to obtain information ; 
while some grace the peerage and baronetage of England, of 
many of the exiled Refugees scarce a descendant, even in a collateral 
branch, is to be found. Of the loyalists that remained to run the 
risk of the spirit of the people, the task has been less difficult. 

Of nearly two hundred that were banished by the government 
of Massachusetts, upwards of sixty were graduates of Harvard Col- 
lege. And of the five judges of the supreme court of that pro- 
vince at the commencement of the difficulties, the Hon. William 
Gushing alone was of patriot principles, who was afterwards on the 
bench of the supreme court of the United States. 



JOURNAL AND LETTERS 



CHAPTER I 



Philadelphia, May 4, 1775. Since the late unhappy affairs at 
Concord and Lexington, finding the spirit of the people to rise on 
every fresh alarm, (which has been almost hourly,) and their tem- 
pers to get more and more soured and malevolent against all mod- 
erate men, whom they see fit to reproach as enemies of their 
country by the name of tories, among whom I am unhappily 
(although unjustly) ranked ; and unable longer to bear their un- 
deserved reproaches and menaces hourly denounced against 
myself and others, I think it a duty I owe myself to withdraw for 
a w^hile from the storm which to my foreboding mind is approach- 
ing. Having in vain endeavoured to persuade my wife to accom- 
pany me, her apprehensions of danger from an incensed soldiery, 
a people licentious and enthusiastically mad and broken loose from 
all the restraints of law or religion, being less terrible to her than a 
short passage on the ocean ; and being moreover encouraged by 
her, I left my late peaceful home (in my sixtieth year) in search of 
personal security and those rights which by the laws of God I 
ought to have enjoyed undisturbed there, and embarked at Beverly 
on board the schooner Lively. Captain Johnson, bound hither, on 
Sunday the 23d ultimo, and have just arrived. Hoping to find an 
asylum amongst quakers and Dutchmen, w^ho I presume from 
former experience have too great a regard for ease and property ta 
sacrifice either at this time of doubtful disputation on the altar of 
an unknow-n goddess, or rather doubtful divinity. 

My fellows-passengers were Andrew Cabot,* his wife and child, 
and Andrew Dodge.* My townsman, Benjamin Goodhue,f was 

♦ Merchants of Beverly. t See Supplement. 

4 



26 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1775. 

kind enough to come on board, and having made my kinsman and 
correspondent, Samuel Smith, acquainted with my arrival, he v^^as 
pleased to come on board also, and his first salutation, " We will 
protect you though a tory,^^ embarrassed me not a little ; but soon 
recovering my surprise, we fell into a friendly conversation, and he 
taking me to his house, I dined with his family and their minister, 
Mr. Sproat, suffering some mortification in the cause of truth. 
After an invitation to make his house my home during my stay 
here, which I did not accept, I took leave, and went in pursuit of 
lodgings, and on enquiring at several houses, ascertained they were 
full, or for particular reasons would not take me ; and so many 
refused as made it fearful whether, like Cain, I had not a discour- 
aging mark upon me, or a strong feature of toryism. The whole 
city appears to be deep in congressional principles, and inveterate 
against " Hutchinsonian Addressers.''^ Happily we at length arrived 
at one Mrs. Swords', a widow lady, in Chestnut-street, with whom 
I found quarters, rendered more agreeable by S. Waterhouse's com- 
pany, who also lodges here. 

May 5, 1775. I find the drums beating, colours flying, and de- 
tachments of newly raised militia parading the streets ; — the 
whole country appears determined to assume a military character, and 
this city, throwing off her pacific aspect, is forming military compa- 
nies, a plan being laid for thirty -three ; composed of all ranks and 
nations, uniting shoulder to shoulder, they form so many patriotic 
bands to oppose like the invincible Macedonian phalanx, the pro- 
gress and increase of parliamentary authority. The Quakers, not 
to be behind in manifesting their aversion, have obtained permis- 
sion of the city committee to make up two companies of Friends 
exclusively, and they are to be commanded by Samuel Marshall 
and Thomas Mifflin,* both of that persuasion. 

So powerful is the love of liberty, and so great the dread of 
ministerial designs, that the strono'est prejudices and habits have 
given way and are controlled by the former. 

The House this day having received a message from the gover- 
nor with Lord North's conciliatory plan, has on a full debate re- 
jected it, being resolved to' adhere to the union. 

* See Supplement 



1775.] JOURNALANDLETTERS. 27 

Joseph Lee* hearing I was in the city, came to see me, and 
advised my going to London. 

May 6, 1775. Saw Pelatiah Webster,f who at the instance 
of Mr Goodhue treats me civilly. Having had several intima- 
tions that my residence here would be unpleasant, if allowed at all, 
when it shall be known that I am what is called "an addresser ;^' 
besides, solicited to sign " a recantation, '' which may contain more 
than in conscience I can subscribe ; and after all with the uncer- 
tainty whether it will answer the purpose, or should it barely, to 
live and die under the character of reproach and ignominy, which 
the outrageous fury of party may throw upon me, is a reflection too 
painful for a moment to support. I have, therefore, consulted the 
few friends I think it worth while to advise with, and on the result, 
am determined to proceed to London in the vessel in which I came 
here. 

On the credit of Samuel Smith and Sons, I have with their as- 
sistance procured flour to freight a vessel. 

May 7, 111 5.— Sunday. Went with Mr. Smith to Arch- 
street meeting house ; Mr. Sproat entertained us with a truly 
American patriotic sermon, pathetically lamenting the evils we 
are suffering from wicked and tyrannical ministers ; exhorting us 
manfully to oppose them. 

At 2 o'clock at the wharf, a large collection of people were 
waiting news from London, Capt. Robinson having just anchored. 
The only news was, that the restraining bill respecting New-Eng- 
land, and the other respecting the southern colonies, were passed. 

Dr. Franklin arrived last night, which was announced by ring- 
ing of bells to the great joy of the city. I cannot but promise 
myself some good, as his knowledge and experience must have in- 
fluence in the approaching Congress, which will I doubt not listen 
to his judgment. He is, it is said, to return to England again soon, 
at Lord Chatham's instance, who tells him he must be on the spot 
at the opening of Parliament. 

May 9, 1775. Dined with Stephen Collins ; passed the 
evening at Joseph Reed's,* in company with Col. Washington, (a 

* See Supplement. 

t In July, 1774, this gentleman directed his correspondent at BostOHj to 
pay £10 to the commitee for the relief of sufferers by the Bojtoa Port Bill. 



28 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1775. 

fine figure and of a most easy and agreeable address,) Richard 
Henry Lee, and Col. Harrison, three of the Virginia delegates. — 
Besides Mr. and Mrs. Reed, were Mrs. Deberdt,* Dr. Shippen, 
and Thomas Smith. I staid till twelve o'clock, the conversation 
being chiefly on the most feasible and prudent method of stopping 
up the channel of the Delaware to prevent the coming up of any 
large ships to the city ; I could not perceive the least disposition to 
accommodate matters. 

Col. Caswell and Mr. Hewes, the North Carolina delegates, 
arrived this day, and are at our lodgings. 

May 10, 1775. Early in the morning a great number of per- 
sons rode out several miles, hearing that the eastern delegates 
were approaching, when about 11 o'clock the cavalcade appeared, 
(I being near the upper end of Fore street ;) first two or three 
hundred gentlemen on horseback, preceded, however, by the newly- 
chosen city military officers, two and two, with drawn swords, 
followed by John Hancock and Samuel Adams in a phaeton and 
pair, the former looking as if his journey and high living, or so- 
Hcitude to support the dignity of the first man in Massachusetts, 
had impaired his health. Next came John Adams and Thoraas 
Cushing in a single horse chaise; behind followed Robert Treat 
Paine, and after him the New York delegation, and some from the 
province of Connecticut, etc., etc. The rear was brought up by 
a hundred carriages, the streets crowded with people of all ages, 
sexes and ranks. The procession marched with a slow, solemn 
pace ; on its entrance into the city all the bells were set to ringing 
and chiming, and every mark of respect that could be, was ex- 
pressed : — not much I presume to the secret liking of their fellow 
delegates from the other colonies, who doubtless had to digest the 
distinction as easily as they could. 

May 11, 1775. Col. Caswell was innoculated for the small 
pox. Mr. Lee again repeated his advice of my going to London. 
Dined wiih J. B. Smith; rode with him to his farm six miles 
out. Drank tea with Mr. Lee and Startin. 

May 12, 1775. Sent my baggage on board the Lively — re- 



* The mother of Mrs. Reed and widow of the Massachusetts Assembly 
agent to the British government. 



1775.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 29 

ceived a letter from Stephen Collins to Mr. Neat of London — paid 
my respects to Mrs. Deberdt, and received a letter to her son. Re- 
ceived my invoice of flour from Samuel Smith and Sons. Mr. 
Startin presented me vfith an open letter on Wilkinson and Co. 
Birmingham, and Mr. Reed and lady gave me letters to their brother, 
Dennis Deberdt, London. From post office took Rivington's two 
last newspapers, and received from the publishers all the present 
week's Philadelphia papers. Messrs. Lee and Webster took leave, 
and with my fellow passenger, Mr. Webster's son Pelatiah, I went 
on board the Lively. 

May 16, 1775. Spoke Capt. Waterman in a schooner from 
Nantucket, who brought me a letter from Nathan Goodale, stating 
that his family, Mr. Pynchon's, and Mr. Orne's, had arrived there, 
to which I replied. 

TO NATHAN GOODALE, ESQ. 

In the Delaware, May 16, 1775. 
Dear Sir : 

You can scarce conceive my joy at hearing that my neighbours, 
suffering in the same cause as myself, and for whom I sincerely 
profess a friendship, were in a secure retreat. Continue there by 
all means, safe from the alarms and dangers you have fled from. 

Philadelphia is wholly American, strong friends to congress- 
ional measures ; at least, no man is hardy enough to express a 
doubt of the feasibility of their projects. Mr. Joseph Lee leads a 
recluse life there. The inhabitants are displeased that the New 
Englanders make it their city of refuge. The new established 
post (instead of the old eastern one which is stopped,) admits no 
letters to pass but those franked ; the contents of which must be 
known to one of the committee to be entitled to that benefit. 

Yours truly, 

Saml. Curwen. 

June 1, 1775. At Sea. The Otter sloop-of-war, from Boston, 
brought us to at 9 o'clock, and informed us all was quiet when 
she left. The provincial forces, amounting to fifteen thousand 
men, were waiting the determination of the Congress; that forty-five 



30 .JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1775. 

transports with the three generals, had arrived there eight days 
ago ; and that a great fire happened there, beginning at the bar- 
rack stores on the docks, and consuming all from thence to King- 
street. She detained us two hours in order to send letters to 
England. 

July 3, 1775. Arrived at Dover, England, at 11 o'clock, A. M. 
Mr. Webster and myself concluded to take coach for London 
after visiting the Castle. We first ascended to one of the square 
towers, in height 134 steps, from which in a clear day the French 
shore is to be seen, and a most agreeable view into the country. 
The town of Dover seems under foot, and even the steeples scarce 
as high as the foot of the hill. We next visited Julius Caisar's 
tower, (said to have been built by him,) old and in ruins ; on the 
plains of it is a battery of twenty four pounders, — one of brass, 
24 feet long, called Queen Elizabeth's pocket-piece, given her by 
Holland at the time of its emancipation from Spain. It is curious- 
ly ornamented with the arms of England and Holland ] was cast 
in 1544 ; weighs six tons, and carries a twelve pound shot seven 
miles. The well is 375 feet deep. The original key supposed to be 
eighteen hundred years old, is 21 inches long, and weighs three 
or four pounds. We also saw a sword of state five feet long, the 
handle twelve inches. At the coffee-house met James Teal, a 
son of the widow of the late Gov. Belcher of Massachusetts by her 
first husband. He wished to convey intelligence of his residence 
here to his mother in New England ; his letters have miscarried 
for some time past. 

London, July 4. Arrived at the New England coffee-house, 
Threadneedle-street, at 7 o'clock P. M. — July 5. Met my towns- 
man and friend Benjamin Pickman, "which rejoiced me; we walk- 
ed to Westminster Hall, — in Chancery saw Sir Thomas Sewell, 
master of the rolls, sitting with his hat on, — at Common Pleas saw 
Judge Blackstone and Sergeant Glynn; and the King's Bench, 
Lord Mansfield and Mr. Sergeant Wedderburne. Lord Mansfield's 
manner is like the late Judge Dudley's of Massachusetts. His peer- 
ing eyes denote a penetration and comprehension peculiarly his 
own. Mr. Wedderburne spoke, but at no great length. 

July 9, 1775. Went to old Jewry meeting-house, where I met 
Gov. Hutchinson, his son and daughter, — a cordial reception and 



1775,] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 31 

invitation to visit him. Mr. Isaac Smith and Mr. Deberdt sat in 
the pew next me. 

TO WILLIAM PYNCHON, ESQ., SALEM. 

London, July 7, 1775. 
Dear Sir : 

I am glad for the calm season at Salem ; — could I have been 
safe on the same conditions I find my friends permitted to reside at 
home, I would joyfully have accepted them. However, this calm I 
fear cannot last long ; for if Congress does not offer terms that ad- 
ministration think they can in honour accept, I have good grounds 
for saying the most vigorous measures will be pursued, which I 
fear will cause the destruction of my country. There is an army 
of NewEnglanders here. My old friend Mr. Sayre, a city banker, 
married to a lady of fortune, invited me to dine with him in com- 
pany with my friend Mr. Deberdt. 

Let Mr. and Mrs. Cabot know tliat her niece Mrs. Copley,* 
with whom I dined yesterday at Mr. Bromfield's, Islington, is well, 
and expects her husband on his passage from Italy. 

Yours truly, 

S. CURWEN. 

July 11, 1775. Waited upon Governor Hutchinson, (in com- 
pany with B. Pickman,) for the first time ; were well received, and 
invited to dinner for Saturday, 

July 18, 1775. Evening to Vauxhall Gardens ; fine gravel- 
led walks, shrubbery, and covered alcoves lighted by lamps, and 
rendered a most enchanting spot. Tables spread under the trees 
for entertainment. In one of the open retreats is a most finished 
piece of statuary of Handel, sitting on a harp in a loose dress, 

July 20, 1775. To J. Lane's house with B. Pickman, passed 
the evening there in company with Samuel Quincy, Jonathan 
Sew all, and David Green, 

July 21, 1775, By boat from Temple stairs to Ranelagh ; a 
numerous company of well dressed people there, among them the 
Duke of Gloucester and French ambassador. 

* Lady of the great artist. 



32 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1775. 

July 22, 1775. Spent the day at Hempsted, in company with 
Isaac Smith, Samuel Quincy, David Green, and P. Webster. 

TO REV. THOxATAS BARNAP.D, SALEM. 

London, 22d July, 1775. 
Dear Sir : 

The dissipation, self-forgetfulness, and vicious indulgences of 
every kind, which characterize this metropohs, are not to be won- 
dered at. The temptations are too great for that degree of philo- 
sophy and religion ordinarily possessed by the bulk of mankind. 
The unbounded riches of many afford the means of every species of 
luxury, which, (thank God,) our part of America is ignorant of, 
and the example of the wealthy and great is contagious. Ten 
miles round is filled with pleasant villas, and Sunday is allotted to 
visiting them. The congregation at old Jewry meeting-house, re- 
spectable for its appearance, did not exceed a hundred. The 
preacher is called a Presbyterian, and all of that denomination here 
are on a broader and more liberal plan of divinity than those who 
go by the name of Independents, such as the " Pinner's Hall Di- 
vines" and their associates. The style of the preachers in London 
(of our way) is more just and correct than ours in New England. 
To my surprise I saw an auditor taking notes. Notes for prayer 
or thanksgivings are never read, and the mention of such cases is 
deferred to the last prayer. Admission to the pews is by a female, 
who unlocks the doors, (all having locks ;) strangers are conducted 
to the table pew in the centre, where the sacrament is adminis- 
tered. 

***** 

TO WILLlAxM PYNCHON, ESQ., SALEM. 

London, 25th July, 1775. 
Dear Sir : 

I dropped in at Guild-hall, where Judge Nares was sitting at the 
City Common Pleas ; on his cushion were worked the city arms, — 
and also on the Recorder's, I presume to remind them of the city 
rights. I was fortunate in procuring a seat just behind Sergeant 
Davy, and heard as far as my imperfect organs (and the noise and 
confusion) would admit. While he was opening the case, he was 
obliged to rise out of his seat, step forward and lean down to hear. 



1775.] JOL'RNAL AND LETTERS. 33 

in a manner unbecoming the dignity of a judge. Every fact of 
importance delivered by a witness was noted down by the judge as 
well as counsel. The noise was much greater than would be al- 
lowed in our American courts. 

I have seen the Lord Mayor in his court ; but this court seems 
more like a reference business than any thing else. Through un- 
common good fortune, 1 have, without the customary delay of two 
or three weeks, been admitted into the British Museum, Montague 
House, a truly royal institution for the preservation of the produc- 
tions of nature and art. Saw the first Bible printed by authority, 
on vellum, and turning to the 91st Psalm, 5th verse, instead of 
" Tlvou shall not he afraid of the terrors by night,'^ etc., I saw the 
following : " Thou shalt not fear the bugs and vermin by night,'" etc. 
There are many other as remarkable differences, but had not time 
to examine many texts. 

I am just informed of a most melancholy event, the destruction of 
Charlestown in Massachusetts by the king's troops, which all agree 
in ; the other parts of the story are told differently. Mr. Breck- 
nock says the king's troops would not fight, but laid down their 
arms, which is the reason of the great carnage among the officers. 
My distress and anxiety for my friends and countrymen embitter 
every hour. May it please God to inspire men of influence on 
either side the Atlantic, with juster sentiments of the real interest 
of Great Britain and the colonies than they seem to have possessed 
hitherto. Yours truly, 

S. CURWEN. 

July 27. Dined at Mr. Sayre's, in company with four gentle- 
men and Lady Francis Sherard, only daughter of the late Earl 
of Harborough ; returned home in Mr. Sayre's coach. 

July 28. By invitation dined at Grocers' Company feast at 
their hall in the Poultry. A procession was formed after dinner 
(band playing,) and halted behind the chair of the new elected 
master, when the secretary put a tiara on his head ; while another 
officer held a large golden cup filled with wine, drank to him, and 
delivered it ; and the master on taking it drank to the prosperity 
of the company. The ceremony was also bad towards the newly 
made wardens. 

5 



34 J O U R N A L A N D L E T T E R S . [ 1775. 

July 29. Dined with Governor Hutchinson, in company with 
Mr. Joseph Green, Mr. Mauduit, and Mr, Ward Nicholas Boyl- 
ston ; the latter gave us an entertaining narrative of his travels 
through Syria, Palestine, and Egypt. 

July 30. Sunday attended worship at Dr. Fordyce's meeting- 
house, Monk well- street. He discoursed with great energy and 
pathos, abounding with flowers of rhetoric, metaphor, and with 
uncommon theatric gesture, equal if not beyond Mr. Whitefield. 

In the vestry room is hanging the original license from 
Charles II. to Mr. Doolittle for this present house of worship. 
Took tea with Dr. Fordyce, at Mr. Kennedy's, and passed an 
agreeable hour in conversation. 

August 3. Walked along Hyde Park wall till arrived at the 
turnpike between that and the Green Park; at the gate of the 
former stands a noble house, built by the present Lord Chancellor 
Apsley,* on ground taken out of the park, and given him by the 
king for that purpose. Saw their majesties returning from the 
drawing room, the king in a sedan chair surmounted b}-^ a crown, 
dressed in very light cloth with silver buttons ; the queen carried 
by two porters in a chair, dressed in lemon-colored flowered silk, 
on a light cream-colored ground. They passed between two lines, 
observed, smiled, and bowed as they passed. 

TO DR .lOHN PRL\CE, HALIFAX. 

London, August 4, 1775. 
Dear Sir : 

I presume you little expected to hear from a fellow sufferer in 
the cause of loyalty, a whole army of whom are here lamenting 
their own and their country's unhappy fate. I heard of your 
escape, and a circumstance connected with it that must render your 
existence more tolerable, viz., that you were accompanied by your 
wife and children, and I cordially rejoice in your and their deliver- 
ance from the evils which attend our common friends in Salem, 
and elsewhere in New England. What melancholy scenes they 
and we are to go through before this unnatural controversy is 
ended, God only knows! — May you and I be prepared for the 
worst events. If any of our common friends are in Halifax, be 

* Afterwards Earl Balhurst. 



1775.] JOURNAL A ND^LET TEES. 35 

pleased to remember me to them in the kindest manner. Our old 
friend Ben. Pickman desires to be remembered to you. 
With much regard, etc., 

S. CaRWEiN. 

Jiugust 4. At Mr. Boylston's saw many curiosities he brought 
from Egypt, the Holy Land, etc. Amongst others the locust in 
pods, the supposed food of John the Baptist. 

August 5. Dined at Gov. Hutchinson's, in company with 
Joseph Hooper, Benjamin Pickman, Joseph Taylor, Isaac Smith, 
Mr. Silsbee, and the governor's family. 

August 6. At Old Jewry meeting-house — communion day — 
in which service Governor Hutchinson, his son Elisha, Mr. Pick- 
man, and myself participated. The minister brought the elements, 
and repeated to each communicant some pertinent expression of 
Scripture, waiting till each had received. 

TO NATHAN GOODALE. ESQ., NANTUCKET. 

London, August 8, 1775. 
De.«i Sir : 

It really appears to me that administration will proceed to such 
extremities as will terminate in the ruin of England and the 
colonies. It is a capital mistake of our American friends to expect 
insurrections here ; there is not a shadow of hope for such an event. 
The manufactories are in full employ, and one of the warmest of 
the friends of America told me that letters from Manchester 
expressed joy that no American orders had been sent, otherwise 
there must have been disappointment somewhere. What effects 
may follow in the spring if orders from Russia and Spain are not 
received, I cannot foresee : — some foretell discontent in the country 
which will affect the stocks; whether these will happen depends 
on contingencies of which I am not a judge. There appears to be 
a tenderness in the minds of many here for America, even of those 
who disapprove of the principles of an entire independence of the 
British legislature, and ardently wish an effort may be taken to 
accommodate. It is said most vigorous measures will take place 
in the spring if no offer be made on the part of the colonists. 

With much regard, etc. S. Curwen. 



36 JOURNAL \7iV LETTERS. [1775, 

August 23, 1775. Went to Sir John Fielding's office, Bow- 
street - examination of prisoners for robberies, assaults, etc. He 
is a venerable gentleman and blind (as justice is represented); his 
queries manifested a mild deportment, ready apprehension and 
great penetration. Visited Hampton Court and gardens, which are 
exceedingly beautiful, although deserted by the royal family. Here 
are chairs of state with rich canopies, tapestry in gold and silver 
grounds, containing Scripture and ancient stories of Greece and 
Rome — adorned also with reigning beauties of the court of Charles 
11. — of the founders of the different orders of monks, friars, nuns, 
etc., of former kings, queens, etc. ; Madonnas, the Supper, etc. 
The ceilings in high colouring and fine preservation, by Verrio, 
were as pleasing to me as any part of the ornaments, as they referred 
to incidents in Charles Il.d's story. This palace consists of several 
squares mostly old, and in same state (decay of time excepted) as 
in Henry VIII th's time, when by the envy of the courtiers Cardinal 
Wolsey (who built it for his own use) was obliged to present it to 
the king. The front on the garden facing the river is magnifi- 
cent and in good rep tir. 

Thence to Windsor — St. George's chapel in excellent repair. 
Here are deposited the bodies of Henry VIII. and one of his queens, 
and Charles I. in the midst of the choir. In the side aisles are fu- 
neral monuments of former kings, of which I recollect Edward IV. 
and VI. ; some ancient nobility, and many canons of the Roman 
church, with their images in sacerdotal garments cut in brass, let 
into flat grave-stones on the floor ; stalls for the knights of the 
garter; the choir decorated with carvings, and the windows filled 
with oil paintings of Scripture stories. We then ascended the royal 
apartments in the castle, consisting as at Hampton Court of an ar- 
mory, the walls being covered with pikes, halberds, matchlocks, 
small arms, etc., disposed in a variety of figures. Over the mantel- 
piece a fine full length of George Prince of Denmark (husband of 
Queen Anne) on horseback; the horse seemed alive. The other 
rooms hung in rich tapestry on gold and other grounds, with paint- 
ings, originals and copies of the best masters. In Queen Anne's 
china-closet were wooden sconces gilt, on which are set china por- 
celain jars of various shapes up to the ceiling. In a small apart- 
ment is to be seen a table fastened to the wall, whereon is a little 



1775.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 37 

flag of white satin, with the hanner of France worked into it, fas- 
tened by silver clasps to a slender reed of black ebony capped with 
silver, which the Duke of Marlborough is obliged to present, and 
lay on that spot on the 2d of August annually, before twelve o'clock 
at midday, on forfeiture of his palace of Blenheim and the manor 
belonging to it ; this being the tenure by which he holds them, 
agreeably to act of parliament. From the terrace we saw almost 
under feet Eton college, another noble monument of Gothic archi- 
tecture. In a square stands a brazen statue of Henry VI., the 
founder in royal robes. 

Visited Welbore Ellis's seat at Twickenham, formerly Pope's ; 
the grotto, being arches under the house about a man's height, (ad- 
mitting a prospect into the longest shady contemplative walk, five 
feet wide, in the garden,) filled with small flint-stones, Bristol and 
other kinds in mortar, a few pieces of glass on the top and sides : 
two or three niches filled with the busts of Pope and others ; — there 
is also in a cross alley a statue of Terence, and in an addition 
(made by Mr. Stanhope, late owner,) over the centre of an arch, is 
a niche filled with a bust of Pope, and underneath are the follow- 
ing lines : 

" The humble roof; the garden's scanty line, 
111 spoke the genius of a bard divine ; 
But fancy now displays a fairer scope, 
And Stanhope's plans unfold the soul of Pope." 

Mr. Stanhope's addition is by far the most elegant part, wherein 
are many foreign trees, such as the cedar of Lebanon, weeping 
willows, etc. ; also a green-house filled with flowers, plants and 
fruits. In a retired part of the grounds stands a plain obelisk, 
eighteen feet high, dedicated by Pope to his mother, with the fol- 
lowing inscription : — 

" Ah EDITHA ! 

MATRUM OPTIMA, . 

mulierum amantissima, 

Vale!"* 



• " Alas ! Editha, best of Mothers, most affectlinate of Women, Fare- 
well !" 



38 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1775. 



TO HON. WILLIAM BROWNE, BOSTON. 

London, 31st Aug. 1775. 
Dear Sir: 

As far as my experience reaches, I have observed that the upper 
ranks, most of the capital stockholders, and I am told the principal 
nobility, are for forcing supremacy of parliament over the colonies ; 
and from the middle ranks down are opposed to it. America fur- 
nishes matter for disputes in coffee-houses, sometimes warm, but 
without abuse or ill nature, and there it ends. It is unfashionable 
and even disreputable to look askew on one another for difference 
of opinion in political matters ; the doctrine of toleration, if not 
better understood, is, thank God, better practised here than in 
America ; otherwise there would not be such numbers of unhappy 
exiles suffering every disadvantage. 

Incredible quantities of ammunition and stores shipped and 
shipping from Tower-wharf for America, manifests the intention of 
administration to prosecute the plan of subjection of the colonies 
to the authority of parliament; for that is the only dispute, as it is 
understood here. Administration would gladly have met the colo- 
nies half way or more, had there appeared any inclination to accept 
terras in any degree consistent with the honor and dignity of the 
mother country. Now, no alternative ; an absolute independence 
of the colonies on Great Britain, or an explicit acknowledgment 
of the British legislature over all the dominions of the empire. 
The proclamation which you will receive by this conveyance was 
published the day before yesterday at the Royal Exchange, with 
all the circumstances of indignity the lord mayor could throw on it. 

Instead of the languid measures hitherto pursued, more active 
ones will succeed, and then wo to poor Massachusetts, which, like 
the scape-goat, must bear the sins of many. Do urge our remaining 
friends to flee from the destruction that will speedily overtake that 
devoted colony. 

You will not wonder at the luxury, dissipation and profligacy 
of manners said to reign in this capital, when you consider that the 
temptation to indulgence, from the lowest haunts to the most elegant 
and expensive rendezvous of the noble and polished world, are 
almost beyond the power of numbers to reckon up. 



1775.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 39 

Please make my compliments to Judge Sewall and all other 
friends and acquaintances with you ; and in the kindest manner 
remember me to Mrs. Browne. 

Very truly your friend, 

S. Cur WEN. 

Sept. 17. Attended public worship at the " Reformed Liturgy 
Assembly," Essex House, Essex-street, Strand ; heard Rev. Theo- 
philus Lindsey, the Unitarian reformist, who gave up a living in 
Yorkshire, (worth three hundred a year,) on the rejection of the 
petition to parliament for a revisal and amendment of the common 
prayer. Preacher serious, style good, discourse useful. 

Sept. 20, At the Charter House, a foundation by Thomas Sut- 
ton, Esq., at a cost of j£12,000 sterling, for classically educating 
forty boys, and supporting eighty old bachelors and widowers, who 
are to receive yearly a black cloak, without which never to appear 
at meals, nor with it without the walks; — besides ten pounds in 
cash, house-rent, food, and firing. They have about forty acres 
(enclosed by a brick wall twenty feet high,) laid out in gardens ; 
at the entrance are the arms of the donor, formed by small pebbles 
of the size of acorns. 

Sept. 21. At the Disputation-club, Queen's arms j question 
debated, " Is it not injustice in the administration to pursue mea- 
sures at the cost of the price of blood, without any heneft to the 
nation ?" — which was voted in the affirmative, but not without a 
few dissentients. 

Oct. 11. Governor Hutchinson came in his coach with Mr. 
Copley from Mr. Bromfield's, and took Mr. Pickman and myself 
to his house, where we dined in company with Mr. Bliss, Mr. W. 
N. Boylston, Mrs. Copley, and the family. 

J^ov. 18. News by a packet from New-York, that Gov. Tryon 
and Gov, Campbell are obliged to retreat from their respective 
governments on shipboard ; and that Dr. Franklin had arrived 
at the provincial camp at Cambridge to advise Gen. Washington 
to attempt the lines on the neck ; — and that Samuel Adams and 
Mr. Dickinson were at odds. 

JVov. 29. Saw Mr. Garrick in Hamlet at Drury Lane ; in 
my eye more perfect in the expression of his face than in the 



40 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1775. 

accent and pronunciation of his voice, which, however, was much 
beyond the standard of his fellow actors. 

Dec. 1. At great St. Helen's, Bishopgate-street, where I saw 
a monument to Sir Thomas Bancroft, a lord mayor's officer, and 
an oppressive knave, who had heaped up much wealth, which 
he left with trustees to be improved till his rising from the dead ; 
which he imagined would take place after a certain period, when 
his wealth was to be returned to him. In the meantime, he ordered 
that his corpse should be laid and kept in a coffin, (with a lock 
which he could draw back,) and deposited in a tomb with a glass 
window and a glass door, to be opened once a year on a given day, 
to be shown to any spectator ; all which has been complied with 
hitherto. But his trustees have with these ill-gotten gains erected 
an alms-house at Mile-end, for the support of poor women and 
children. 

Made another unsuccessful attempt to enter the gallery of the 
House of Commons, to hear the third and last reading of the bill 
prohibiting all commerce with America ; learned at the door that 
it is to remain shut to strangers, for the pretended reason that the 
floor of the house is too small and the gallery necessary for the use 
of members ; confirmed by Mr. George Hayley, a city member, 
whom I met in the Strand. 

Thence to Herald's office, where Parson Peters, with his friend 
Mr. Punderson, lodges; the latter has lately arrived from Boston, 
having escaped by rowing himself in a cockboat eighteen miles 
into the sound from his native place, Norwich, Connecticut, and 
beino- taken up by a vessel and put on board the Rose man-of-war, 
Capt. Wallace, and conveyed to Boston. It seems he was harshly 
dealt with bv the " sons of liberty," being obliged to make two con- 
fessions to save his life ; notwithstanding which he was hunted, pur- 
sued, and threatened, and narrowly escaped death, (or the Simsbury 
mines, to which he was finally adjudged, and he thinks with the 
loss of his eyes,) which would have been his fate but for his sea- 
sonable and providential retreat. 

TO HON. WILLIAM BROWNE, BOST^ N. 

London, Dec. 4th, 1775. 
Dear Sir : 

Yours of 7th Oct. affords me a pleasingly sensible proof of the 



1775.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 41 

truth of King Solomon's observation ; " News from a far country 
is as refreshing as cold water to a thirsty soul." 

Uncertain what may be the fate of this, I am restrained from 
writing what might prove amusing, perhaps informing ; should it 
fall short of its intended destination, and get into the hands of the 
provincials, though containing nothing prejudicial to the interests 
of America, even in their own view, nor reflecting on the character 
of any individual, the most innocent expressions, by the force of 
party prejudice, might be construed into a sense entirely foreign to 
one's intention, and render one obnoxious or ridiculous. Were I 
ever so much of a mind to write on politics, I profess not to have 
such connections as to justify any positive declarations concerning 
the determination of the cabinet council, and whoever does, you 
may be assured, if he writes more than the court pleases to publish 
in the Gazette, arrogates pretensions, to which he has no claim. 

I will just hint what appears to be a matter of notoriety here : 
the opposition in parliament is too inconsiderable in numbers, 
weight and measures to hinder the progress of administration in 
their plans respecting America. Both houses repose entire confi- 
dence in the king and his ministers' resolution not to relinquish the 
idea of compelling the submission of all subjects within the limits 
of the British Empire to the authority of the supreme legislature : 
preparations for which are making for increasing the number of 
troops, to be sent over time enough for a vigorous push next 
season. The events of war are uncertain, and victory is by many 
thought doubtful, — yet it is more than whispered by some that 
America had better be dispeopled than remain in its present state 
of anarchy, — much more independent. Should this idea regulate 
future measures, and should government despair of subduing them, 
one may, without the spirit of prophecy, see beforehand what ter- 
rible destructive evils will then befall our poor, devoted, once happy 
country. " fortunatus," etc. Very truly yours, 

S. CURWEN. 

Dec. 12. To Newington to view the house and grounds of 
Dr. Watts' friend Gunston, celebrated in his poem " Sacred to 
Virtue," now owned by a daughter of Lady Abney, a niece of 
Gunston. 

6 



42 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1775. 

In the hall is a half length of Caryl, the commentator on Job, 
and by his side his wife, mother of Mr. Gunston and Lady Abney ; 
also Sir Thomas Abney and his lady. To Dr. Watts' study, being 
occupied by the lady, we could not gain admittance. From the 
balcony we had extensive views of the town and country, and 
through and over the whole, as well as the house, are spread a 
neatness and arrangement superior to any spot I ever beheld. 

Dec. 15. At Covent Garden, to see Mrs. Barry as Constance 
in king John — a fine person, and esteemed the best actress now on 
the stage. 

Dec. 17. At Foundling Hospital chapel; Mr. Bromley preached. 
Compared the example of Jesus with that of the most perfect of 
heathen antiquity, Zeno, founder of the Stoic sect, in whose honor 
Athens declared by public edict, that he had exemplified in his life 
the precepts he taught, but of whose inconsistency the preacher 
enumerated several gross instances, not much to the credit of mere 
human reason, in comparison with the most eminent and brightest 
of mere men recorded in the Scriptures, in whom great infirmities 
and even follies are to be perceived ; his example only, pure and 
spotless, being fit to be proposed to mankind for their practice and 
imitation. 

Dec. 18. At New England coffee-house, where T read in the 
New-York paper that forts St. John and Chamble had surrendered 
to the provincials commanded by Col. Montgomery, formerly a 
captain in the regular service, and well esteemed. The garrison 
was commanded by Major Preston, with six hundred regulars and 
Canadians. The provincials immediately investing the fort were 
only two hundred in number. The officers are to be sent home or 
down to General Gage, the commander-in-chief in America, in 
order to be transported. The provincials are supposed to be de- 
signed for Montreal, Gen. Carleton retiring there after a defeat. — 
News of a contrary kind is, that Falmouth* in Casco Bay, con- 
sisting of 139 dwelling houses and 278 stores, warehouses, etc., to- 
gether with many vessels, was burnt by Captain Mowatt of the 
Canseau sloop-of-war, after two hours notice to remove, for joining, 
as the captain was pleased in his letter to the inhabitants to term 
it, with the rebels ; the particular crime or crimes not mentioned. 

• Now Portland, Maine. 



1775.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. ^ 

Dec. 22. Walked to Brorapton-Row with B, Pickman, to dine 
with Judge Sewall, who meeting us in the Strand two days ago, 
appointed this day. The family, besides Samuel Quincy, who at- 
tended Mrs. Sewall and Mrs. Green home, having been to see the 
king robe and assent to the American prohibitory bill from the 
throne. After dinner Governor Hutchinson entered and invited 
Judge Sewall, B. Pickman and myself to dine with him to-morrow. 

Dec. 23. At Temple Bar took coach to Governor Hutchinson's, 
where dined in company with Mr. Joseph Green, Mr. Copley, the 
limner and lady with family, and his children. In our way through 
Clerkenwell Green we saw five couple of young persons chained 
together, going under care of tip-staves to Bridewell prison. The 
news of the taking of St. John and Chamble on Sorel-river con- 
firmed by an arrival from Quebec which left 14th November. 

Dec. 25. At Chapel Royal, St. James's ; saw the king and 
queen, who joined in the services with becoming devotion. Bishop 
of London preached. 

Mr. R. Clarke arrived from Boston yesterday, only twenty-one 
days passage. All safe at Salem. The provincials have seized a 
ship with five hundred casks gunpowder, cannon, mortars, and 
stores de guerre et de bouche ; their activity and success is aston- 
ishing. 

TO REV. ISAAC SMITH, IN LONDON. 

Islington, December 27, 1775. 
My Dear Sir : 

I last evening received your favor of the 24th inst., and it 
afforded me great pleasure to observe that a weekly New England 
club was likely to be made up; and I am mortified that the 
extreme coldness of the weather, and the indisposition I have 
labored under for several weeks, prevent my being in town this 
day. Be pleased to make my compliments to ray brother exiles. 
Yesterday I received letters from Salem of 18th and 20th November; 
all was well and quiet there, except a small fracas on account of an 
expression said to have been uttered by Mr. Timothy Orne, which 
gave offence to the ruling powers of the town, who assembled and 
by force took him out of his house into School-street in the evening, 
designing to inflict the modern punishment of tarring and feathering 



44 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1776. 

on him ; but by the influence of the Committee of Safety and his 
promise to appear before the Committee next morning, he was suf- 
fered to depart ; accordingly, the next morning he appeared in 
person ; and he to whom it was reported he had used the expres- 
sion appearing and denying it, promising to submit to the present 
government, pay the taxes required for support of it, and demean 
himself quietly and submissively, and take care to avoid for the 
future making use of unadvised expressions, his present offence 
should be forgiven. 

Mr. Lowell of Newburyport is an acting justice, the only one of 
the " addressers''^ commissioned. The inferior court bench in Essex 
is filled by Caleb Cushing, B. Greenleaf, Timothy Pickering, Jr., 
and Dr. Samuel Holton ; the last but one is the only acting justice 
in our part of the county. Joshua Ward and John Gardner are in 
commission of the peace. On the supreme bench, John Adams, 
William Cushing, William Reed and Peasely Sargent, all of whom 
'tis said accept. Major Hawley refuses all employment, saying 
what he did was purely to serve his country. 

Very truly yours, 

S. CURWEN. 

Bee. 31. Went to Holloway mount, passing through King 
John's palace-spot j nothing standing but the original front gate- 
way, under an arch and two pieces of old stone wall, man-height, 
making part of the wall of stable. Evening at Silver-street meet- 
ing-house lecture; Mr. Smith pathetically addressed the young, 
middle-aged and old on the close of the year : 

May the afflictions I have suffered the past year, in an unhappy 
banishment from my family, friends and country, be the means of 
increasing ray reliance on, and submission to the all-disposing hand 
of the wise and righteous Governor of the universe. 

January 1, 1776. May the events of the following year, how- 
ever unfavorable to the pride of my heart, be productive of more 
moral improvement than the last. 

Jan. 5. Visited Joseph Green — afterwards to Samuel Quincy's, 
where I met Mr. Flucker, Judge Sewall and lady, Samuel Sewall, 
and Harrison Gray, who are bound to the theatre to see the Jubilee, 
which is to be exquisitely decorated in the scenery. 



1776.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 45 

Jan. 20. Accompanied by B, Pickman and Wm. Cabot, went 
to Panton-street, Hayraarket, to see Mr. Fisher, lately arrived from 
America ; he had gone out as well as Mr. Flucker, From thence 
we went to Gov. Hutchinson's, and after a short stay departed 
through the park to Samuel Quincy's and David Green's lodgings, 
Parliament-street, where we met Judge Sewall, Mr. Samuel Sew- 
all, Mr. Flucker, Mr. Harrison Gray, and Mr. Oxnard ; R. Clark 
and Jonathan Clark going out of the door, whom I saw for the first 
time since their arrival. 

Jan. 26. Received a line from Mr. Isaac Smith, inviting me to 
a dinner at the Adelphi tavern, designed as an introduction to a 
New England club, which I have been long desirous of establishing. 

Jan. 28. Almost as cold as ever I felt in New England. 

Jan. 29. Cold without abatement from yesterday, which will 
ever be known as the cold Sunday, 8^ by Farenheit. The Thames 
passed over on the ice : generous collections for the suffering poor. 
The gains of the laborer are almost always spent on Sunday at 
furthest; foresight and provision for a future day, is not a virtue 
known among them. The fires here not to be compared to our 
large American ones of oak and walnut, nor near so comfortable ; 
would that I was away ! 

February 1. To the Adelphi, Strand, where by appointment 
met twenty-one of my countrymen, who have agreed on a weekly 
dinner here, viz. : 

Messrs. Richard Clark, Joseph Green, Jonathan Bliss, Jonathan 
Sewall, Joseph Waldo, S. S. Blowers, Elisha Hutchinson, William 
Hutchinson, Samuel Sewall, Samuel Quincy, Isaac Smith, Harrison 
Gray, David Greene, Jonathan Clark, Thomas Flucker, Joseph 
Taylor, Daniel Silsbee, Thomas Brinley, William Cabot, John S. 
Copley, and Nathaniel Coffin. Samuel Porter, Edward Oxnard, 
Benj. Pickman, Jno. Araory, Judge Robert Auchmuty and Major 
Urquhart, absent, are members of this New England club, as is 
also Gov, Hutchinson. 

London, Feb. 9. Passing through Westminster Hall, I stopped 
for a small space at the courts of common pleas and king's bench ; 
at the former were sitting the Chief Justice De Grey and his asso- 
ciates, one of whom was the famous Sir William Blackstone, author 
of the well known commentaries on the laws of England ; but no 



46 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1776. 

cause of importance, or lawyer of note speaking, I proceeded to the 
latter,where was sitting that excellent useful judge, but mischievous 
politician, Lord Mansfield. For the same reason as the former 1 quit- 
ted my stand here, and retreated to the House of Commons' commit- 
tee-chamber, where for an hour or two I w^as entertained at the 
examination of witnesses in the Worcester contested election. The 
committee sat on an elevated bench, and looked like a court of 
sessions ; the causes managed by advocates with regularity and 
decency. One of the committee was Sir George Saville, the chair- 
man Ferguson — all took minutes as is usual in all the courts. 
Thence to Judge Sewall's, Brompton-row, where met a few New 
England friends at dinner ; among them Mr. Thomas Robie, whom 
I was very glad to see, he having arrived in England from Halifax 
but three days since. By him I received a letter from Dr. John 
Prince in answer to mine dated in August. 

FROM HON. WILLIAM BROWNE. 

Boston, Jan. 8, 1776. 

******* 

George Dodge, in a schooner from Dominica, and Ingersol in a 
schooner of Hasket Derby's from Jamaica, were lately sent in. The 
property of both vessels was transferred to merchants in the West 
Indies to cover their interest, 

James Grant is here from Halifax ; he has the promise of a com- 
mission in the army, and to keep his rank. About two months ago 
Mr. Marston of Marblehead, came by night from Col. Fowles' farm. 
He knows nothing about Salem. His wife died last summer. 

The other day Gen. Robinson showed me the devices upon the 
denominations of the continental bills. On one is represented a 
heavy shower of rain falling on a new settled country, motto 
around it " Serenabit;" on another, a hand plucking the branches 
from a tea-plant, with the motto, " Sustine vel ahstine ;'''' on a third 
a hawk contending with a stork, motto "Exitus in dubio est ;" on 
a fourth, an ancient crown on a pedestal, motto '' Si rede facias ;" 
on a fifth a beaver gnawing down a full grown oak, motto "Perse- 
verando ;" on a sixth an Irish harp, motto " Majora majoribus con- 
sonant." They are the inventions of Dr. Franklin. 

When I wrote to you in October I forgot to send you the fol- 
lowing list of officers in part of the rebel army, found in the pocket 



1776.] 



JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 



47 



of one of their sergeants, who was 
heights of Charlestown, viz. : 

Col. Gerrish, Newbury. 

Lt. Col. Parker, Chelmsford. 

Major Bigelow, Worcester. 

Lt. Col. Henshaw, Leicester. 

Maj. Brooks. 

Lt. Col. Holden. 

Adjt. Green. 

Col. Whitney. 

Col. Woodbridge. 

Major Buttrick. 

Col. Porter. 

Major Miller. 

Col. Doolittle, Petersham. 

Adjt. B. Moore. 

Col. Frye. 

Gen. Whitcomb, Bolton. 

Col. William Prescott. 

Gen. Ward, Shrewsbury. 

Col. Peirce. 

Gen. Pomeroy, Northampton. 

Col. Patterson, Richmond. 

Adjt. Guager. 

Col. Nixon, Framingham. 

Col. Ward, Southborough. 

Maj. Sawyer. 

Adjt. Warner. 

Maj. Wm. Moore, Paxton. 

Maj. Cady. 

Adjt. Hunt. 

Adjt. Holman. 

Adjt. Hart. 

Col. Mansfield. 

Adjt. Putnam. 

Maj. Jackson. 

Lt. Col. Hudson or Hutchins. 

Adjt. Hardy. 



killed on the 17th June, on the 

Col. Gardner, Cambridge. 

Col. Bridge, Chelmsford. 

Lt. Col. Brickett, Haverhill. 

Lt. Col. Clark. 

Major Stacey. 

Major Wood, Pepperell. 

Lt. Col. Powell. 

Adjt. Holden. 

Adjt. Gen. Js. Keith, Easton. 

Col. Green. 

Maj. Baldwin. 

Adjt. Woodbridge. 

Secretary J. Ward. 

Adjt. Montague. 

Adjt. Fox. 

Lt. Col. Robinson, Dorchester. 

Adjt. Febiger. 

Adj. Stevens. 

Col. Bond, Watertown. 

Col. Simmons. 

Lt. Col. Whitney, Harvard. 

Lt. Col. J. Reid, near Manad- 
nock. 

Adjt. Marston. 

Maj. Brigade, Samuel Osgood. 

Lt. Col Moulton. 

Maj. Putnam. 

Lt. Col. Putnam. 

Maj. Poor. 

Maj. Durkee, Norwich. 

Capt. Butler, Peterborough. 

Joseph Trumbull, Judge Advo- 
cate, Norwich. 

Adjt. Handy. 

Lt. Col. Storer. 



48 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1776. 

Those who have obtained leave to exchange the town for a 
country residence the last two months, are taken on board an armed 
ship at Hancock's wharf and are landed at Point Shirley, where 
they are cleansed and aired for the benefit of their brethren who 
have not had the small pox. 

I sent a verbal message to Mrs. Curwen by Bella McLeroy, in- 
forming her of your safe arrival and health; but was discouraged 
by Mrs, Gardiner from trusting her with your letter, which I still 
have in my desk with those lately received, and know not if I can 
ever send them until you will suffer them to be inspected at head- 
quarters on both sides the lines, Mrs, Browne and William desire 
their best regards. Pray present mine to all friends with you, and 
if you ever desire to hear from me again, give me reason to think 
so by sending me a circumstantial account of yourself and of what 
what passes on your side of the water. 

I am your affectionate friend, 

Wm. Browne. 
London, Feb. 15, Dined with New England Club at Adelphi 
Tavern ; was introduced to Sir Francis Bernard, and saw there, for 
the first time since his arrival, Mr. Fisher, who promises to spend 
a day with me soon. Received a letter from Col. Browne, at Boston, 
acquainting me of the sad destruction of wooden houses for want 
of fuel, till of late thirteen vessels arrived with coals, &c., raising 
the despondency of the people. 

Feb. 27. The city polled for a chamberlain; candidates, 
aldermen Wilkes and Hopkins. The latter succeeded, to the no 
small mortification of the Wilkites, who exceed in numbers, among 
the lower classes, the friends of Hopkins. Mr. Wilkes must look 
upon himself as one of the people, and lost henceforth to all 
importance. 

Feb. 29. Dined with Mr. Gilbert Harrison, and delivered ray 
letter of credit from Mr. Timmins to Messrs. Harrison and Ansley. 
March 2. At Parson Peters' saw Mr. Troutbeck, lately ar- 
rived from Halifax, and Mr. Wiswall; mutually invited each 
other to visit, and gave cards, 

March 4. James Russell and his friend Mr. Newman dined 
with me; received a card from Messrs, Clarke excusing them- 
selves, being pre-engaged. 



1776.] JOURNALANDLETTERS. 49 

March 10. To Tic.hfield-street to pay my respects to Gov. Oli- 
ver's lady ; thence to Judge Sewall's, Brompton-Row, where dined. 

March 13. At Covent Garden, obtained a very convenient 
place in the first front seat lower gallery, when the oratorio 
called the Messiah was performed — the whole stage an orchestra ; 
in the centre a spacious organ embellished by a portrait of Handel 
surrounded with a glory, or such rays as are placed round the 
heads of the saints of the Romish calendar— our musical saint's per- 
form anccs being as much read and studied here as their manuals 
of devotion are by their admirers. The form of the orchestra am- 
phitheatrical and the seats concentric, except of the vocal perform- 
ers, who sat in chairs in front. The leading singers were Mrs. 
Wrighton, Mrs. Weischell, Mr. Leoni, etc. — nearly eighty per- 
formers in all. The first viohn, professor La Motte ; the first flute, 
Mr. Florio. The music was noble, grand, full, sonorous, and aw- 
fully majestic; the whole assembly as one, rising, added a solemnity 
which swelled and filled my soul with an — I know not what, that 
exalted it beyond itself, bringing to my raised imagination a full 
view of that sacred assembly of blessed spirits which surround the 
throne of God. 

March 14. Surveyed the New River works at Spafields — 
thence to see the ravages of the late fire at the Savoy, and through 
to the gardens belonging to Somerset House, now about to be pulled 
down, and the ground between it and the river filled up. I cannot 
but think with regret on so many noble and royal apartments in 
good repair, to be destroyed to build offices for the army, that 
bridle of the nation, its scourge, and will be its future ruin. 

March 19. Attended lecture at Salters' Hall. Dr. Price 
gave an excellent sermon from " Forgive us our debts as we forgive 
our debtors^ He observed that this was the only original part of 
the Lord's prayer, (the rest being found in the Jewish liturgy,) and 
was designed to inculcate the distinguishing characteristic of his 
religion, universal love and good will to all mankind, making it the 
very condition on which our hopes of forgiveness are suspended. 
As forgiveness of injuries and love of all mankind are the most 
amiable of all virtues, so are they the most difficult to be practised, 
and ought therefore to be the more endeavored after ; and nothing 
can recommend us better to divine favor and acceptance. 

7 



50 JOUR N ALA NDLETTERS. [ 1776. 

March 21. Mr. Heard, Norroy king-of-arms, having given me 
a letter to A. Farley, Esq., Chapter House, I went, accompanied 
by William Cabot, Samuel Porter, Judge Sewall and his kinsman 
Samuel Sewall, and I. Bliss, and presenting ray letter, we were ad- 
mitted to a sight of Doomsday Books. One, in the fold of a folio, 
contained a valuation or estimate made for an equal tax of all the 
counties of England in the time of William the Conqueror, except 
the three northern counties of Cumberland, Westmoreland, and 
Durham, and the three counties of Essex, Sussex, and Kent, which 
are contained in a smaller fold or large octavo. Sussex contained 
but nine landholders in capite ; all tenures being then from the 
crown, all the rest being mesne lords or tenants under them. The 
writing is fair and well preserved, but difficult to be read from its 
abbreviations in a multitude of places. The initial letters stand for 
words. The spelling of that age is very different from ours ; many 
terms not known now being then in common use. The chapter 
house is of a peculiar construction, and was formerly the parlia- 
ment house in the time of the Edwards, etc., and contains rolls of 
court of King's Bench, Exchequer, etc., for many ages back. 
Evening, at a show called Le.s Ombres CImioises, at which saw 
Earl Temple [supposed author of Junius] and lady, with several 
well-dressed people of fashion — about forty spectators in all. The 
" Ombres" were awkward and unnatural except the puppet dancing 
— an insipid show. 

March 24. Heard Dr. Fleming preach at Pinners' Hall ; his 
ideas clear, and his delivery moderate and devout. He complained 
of those mystics who denied the use of reason ia matters of reli- 
gion ; said it was subversive of it, and contrary to the whole tenor 
of the canon of Scripture, and rendered as useless and unmeaning 
the motives and threatenings proposed to us therein for our obedience, 
and progress in virtue and holiness ; declared mankind free agents, 
endowed with the power of volition and choice, which was the 
foundation of all religious obedience, and without which we were 
not accountable. He denied the merit of Christ's sacrifice to render 
us objects of divine acceptance, which, he said, by the divine prom- 
ise was to be obtained by man's own serious and diligent per- 
formances. 

March 25. Drank tea at Mr. Green's in company with Gov. 



1776.] JOURNALANDLETTERS. ^% 

Hutchinson, whom I had not seen for some weeks, and who ex- 
pressed an uneasiness at my neglect to call, which I accounted for 
as arising from concurrent disappointments. 

March 31. At Joseph Green's in the evening, where I met 
Samuel Quincy. 

^p7-il 1, A. M. At Gov. Hutchinson's ; he was alone, reading 
a new pamphlet entitled " ^n Inquiry whether Great Britain or 
.America is most in fault.'" I accepted an invitation to return to 
dinner : taking leave for the present, I departed, walking through the 
palace and park to Mr. Bliss's lodgings, where I met Judge Sewall, 
Mr. Oxnard and Mr. Smith ; returned to the gov-ernor's, with whom 
only young Oliver and myself dined. From thence, in passing 
through Leicester-square, I called in at Mr. Copley's to see Mr. 
Clarke and the family, who kindly pressed my staying to tea; and 
in the mean time amused myself by seeing his performances in paint- 
ing. He was then at work on a family piece containing himself, Mr. 
Clarke, his wife and four children, of all of whom I observed a very 
striking likeness. At tea was present Mr. West, a Philadelphian, 
a most masterly hand in historic painting; author of the well- 
known and applauded piece, now in print, called " Wesfs Death 
of Wolfe,'''' and taken from his painting. He is now at work on a 
piece called the " Death of Stephen,'" for the king, and for which 
he is to have one thousand pounds. Mr. West is the king's history- 
painter, and was kind enough to put me into a way of obtaining a 
sight of the queen's palace, which he tells me contains, except 
Houghton Hall, the finest collection of capital paintings of any 
house in England, Returned with Mr. Clarke, who was going to 
see his son Jonathan, sick. 

April 3. Breakfasted with Smith and Oxnard, where I found 
Samuel Quincy and David Green, Judge Sewall and a Lieutenant 
Merrick. Bought Dr. Price on " Civil Liberty and the American 
War:' 

Went with Mr. Clarke to procure more convenient lodgings for 
his sick son, which we found as recommended by Dr. Pitcairn in • 
Cross-street, in what is called the Queen's house, said to be a 
palace of Elizabeth's, on a small scale, low and in the taste of 
the sixteenth century. The remains of the porter's lodge at the 
bottom of the garden, in a peculiar style, are yet seen. In one 



52 JOURNAL AND iLETTEES. [1776, 

of the lower rooms is a painting on the windows with the date of 
1588. 

Jipril 4. At our New England club dinner, twenty-five mem- 
bers present. 

April Q. At Portuguese synagogue; a master informed me 
that the common people cannot read the Pentateuch without points, 
although it contains only alphabetic characters; that the points 
were invented about the time of Christ in the reign of Tiberius, and 
that they are necessary to ascertain the sense, which in many places 
would be wholly unintelligible without them, and that it would 
cost six months study to understand the language so as to follow 
them in their prayers. 

April 7. Dined with Gov. Hutchinson, and we took tea at 
Mr. Joseph Green's. 

Jipril 10. Took a view of West's pictures : amongst others 
which filled two rooms, were the original of the death of Wolfe, 
sold to Lord Grosvenor for six hundred guineas, about seven by 
five feet, in high estimation, although censured by an anonymous 
writer in yesterday's " Advertiser ;" Lord Clive's receiving the 
Dewannah from the nabob, figures about twelve inches high and 
likenesses well preserved, — fifteen feet by eight ; and many other 
groups of modern persons in ancient characters. Likewise the 
death of Stephen, the proto-martyr, and at the period of his being 
received after his death by his friends ; the figures seven feet, the 
size of the picture about sixteen feet by seven ; designed for the 
altar of St. Stephen, Walbrook — six hundred guineas to be 
received for it, which Mr. West esteems so small a price that he 
considers it a gift to the church. 

April 11. Visited Tylney House, Epping forest, in company 
with Messrs. Flucker and Hutchinson. The walls of the ball-room 
covered with tapestry of the most lively tints, being the story of 
Telemaque — the ceiling covered with paintings by Mr. Kent. The 
state dining-room is adorned with copies of capital paintings, three 
• of Titian. The state bedchamber hung with crimson damask, 
fined with deckered silk, which I am told is India work and cost 
two thousand pounds. Two other rooms hung in figured velvet on 
satin ground, and crimson velvet with broad gold lace. 

Dined at Mr. K's with five of my countrymen, among them 



1776.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 53 

a Mr. Bourne, lately arrived from Halifax ; he appears a grave, 
solid man, whose acquaintance I think I shall esteem. 

April 14. Attended public worship at Dr. Price's in the after- 
noon, and in company with Benjamin Pickman took tea with him. 
Mr. Pickraan had a long conversation with Dr. Price on American 
affairs, but their sentiments were widely different. 

April 15. Mr. Boylston called, and we went to Parliament- 
street to see the procession of the Peers to Westminster Hall to 
attend the trial of the Duchess of Kingston ; the lords wore their 
robes. The queen, two princes and two princesses, and the peer- 
esses and ladies in great multitudes attended, and made a most bril- 
liant appearance. 

April 17. Went with B. Pickman to Highgate, where dined 
with Mr. Boylston, and after dinner to Caen Wood, the seat of 
Lord Mansfield. The house elegant, not large : — the centre is a 
noble portico, the walls of the hall, saloon, chambers, etc. covered 
with paper of India or Chinese figures — the library a beautiful room, 
(having a fine prospect of St. Paul's, distant about seven miles, 
through a wood, over a lawn, and ending in a fine piece of water,) 
contains the largest mirrors I ever saw, being seven and a half feet 
high by three and a half in breadth. In the hall are two tables 
of jet-black marble. The walls hung with portraits of Lord Mans- 
field and lady, who was a daughter of Finch, Earl of Nottingham. 

April 22. Visited Mr. Hughes seventeen miles out, at Hoddes- 
don, Herts ; the grounds laid out with great taste. 

April 23. Walked to Ware, which contains five hundred 
houses, besides a great curiosity called "the great bed of Ware," 
which is twelve feet square — the posts, which are of uncommon 
size, are carved with white and red roses, built, it is said, at the 
union of the houses of York and Lancaster ; the date, 1463, is 
painted on the centre of the headboard, which with the tester is of 
wood in the same style, laid out in compartments and surrounded 
with roses. The whole weighs half a ton : tw^enty persons can 
repose comfortably on it. 

April 24. Walked through the Rye-field to the Rye House, 
famous as the rendezvous of those who concerted the plot of that 
name : — the room in which they met was once a chapel ; indeed, 
the whole appears as the remains of a famous seat. The walls 



54 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1776. 

brick, and moulded round, forming two high round towers, joined 
together by a line of defence; holes in the walls for arrows, etc. 

On returning home, passed a farm called Nether Hall, belong- 
ing to a Mr. Archer; here are the remains of a palace, said to 
have been King Harold's before the conquest. The house, which 
was very large, has been pulled down ; two lofty brick towers 
remain, with a wall of equal height, crowned with battlements, 
and within a moat surrounding an acre of land covered with ruins. 
In one of the angles is a watch-tower, now converted into a hen- 
roost. Arriving at home, found John Inman, brother of Ralph, 
our countryman, who dined with us ; he is of a blunt humor, easy 
and jolly ; with him and a Mr. Musgrave w^e set off to Mr. Daute- 
ville's, at Brocksburn, by invitation ; passed an agreeable evening 
at Mr. Hughes'. 

May 1. The young chimney-sweepers with their sooty and 
chalked faces are dressed out with ribbons and gilt paper, a gro- 
tesque and merry-andrew appearance. With their brushes and 
scrapers they made a kind of musical sound, raising contributions 
on their employers and others. The milk- maids appeared in fine 
and fantastic attire, and carried on their heads pyramids of three or 
four feet in height, finely decorated. In Ave-Mary lane saw the 
milkmen and maids again with a garland so called ; being a pyra- 
mid consisting of seven or eight stories, in the four angles of which 
stood a silver tankard, and 6n the sides, between each, lessening in 
height as the stories rose, stood a silver salver, the top crowned 
with a chased silver tea-kettle, round which were placed sundry 
small pieces of plate ; the whole adorned with wreaths and festoons 
of flowers, gilt paper, etc., carried on a bier and hand-barrow, it 
being a custom amongst them to collect of the customers a yearly 
contribution. The wrought silver appeared worth many hundreds 
of pounds, and is borrowed for the occasion. 

May 3. Dined with H- H , Esq., Capt. T , 

and B. Pickman, at Jerusalem tavern ; on my way meeting Mr. 
Elisha Hutchinson, who informed me of Col. Browne and son's 
arrival. 

May 4. Called on my friend Browne, who had sent a message 
last evening by Mr. Pickman to invite his three countrymen to his 
lodgings. Col. Browne acquainted me with some facts relative to 



1776.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 55 

the unfortunate abandonment of Boston by the king's troops ; which 
after all has the appearance of being forced. Would to God this ill- 
judged, unnatural quarrel was ended, but I fear thousands of useful 
innocents must be sacrificed to the wickedness, pride and folly of 
unprincipled men. Many of our countrymen called during our stay. 

May 5. To Magdalen Hospital ; heard the Rev. Dr. Dodd 
preach from John xv. 17, " These things I command you, that ye 
love one another." — A most elegant, sensible, serious and pathetic 
discourse, enough to have unarmed a heart not callous to the im- 
pressions of pity. I own my eyes flowed with tears of compassion. 

May 7. Attempted to get into Drury Lane theatre, to see Mr. 
Garrick in the character of Archer, but the crowd so great, that 
after suffering thumps, squeezes, and almost suffocation for two 
hours, I was obliged to retire without effecting it. Went to Mr. 
Silsbee's lodgings to tea. 

May 8. Visited Mr. Fisher, who very politely received me, 
and appeared glad to see me ; from thence to Gov. Hutchinson's, 
who was alone — having before called at Col. Browne's (ray towns- 
man and friend) lodgings, whom I did not see, being gone abroad. 
Thence to Judge Sewall's in Brorapton-Row, but meeting Mr. Har- 
rison Gray near the house, was told that neither he nor Mr. Porter 
were at home. Called again at Col. Browne's, where I found Col. 
Saltonstall ; they both agreed to dine with me. 

May 9. With Col. Browne went to St. Paul's to hear the 
music for the benefit of the sons of clergy. Dr. Porteus* preached 
to a crowded assembly. The archbishop of Canterbury, the bishop 
of London, the lord mayor; and sheriffs, in their formalities present. 

May 10. Met at Col, Browne's Gov. Hutchinson, Judge 
Sewall and Col. Saltonstall ; proceeded to Westminster Hall, heard 
opinions from Judges De Grey, Gould, Blackstone and Nares re- 
specting a verdict. , 

May 11. Advices of the arrival of a vessel which left Phila- 
delphia by consent of Congress, on the owmer's paying them as 
duty one third the cost of vessel and cargo ; and that Arnold is ap- 
pointed a major general, and still remained before Quebec, five 
thousand men having been sent from Philadelphia. Took tea with 
Mr. Copley and Mr. Clark. 

* Afterwards bishop of Chester. 



56 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1776. 

May 13. Walked to Walworth, the gardens of a Mr. Mad- 
docks, a noted florist, wherein I saw the greatest variety of finely 
variegated tulips I believe in England. 

May 14. Went to the exhibition-room in the Strand, where 
were more than fifty people viewing the pictures, models, etc., as 
contained in a book delivered to each at entering. There were 
many performances and some very excellent in their kind, of which 
the view of the eruption of Vesuvius and a few night pieces struck 
me most. 

May 15. Visited Pinchbeck's to view stained glass ; most 
elegant figures, finest tints, in the new revived art, by a Mr. Jervais; 
among which were two full lengths of Christ and Moses, bought 
at seventy guineas by a clergyman, and presented to Westminster 
Abbey. From thence to the exhibition-room of the Royal 
Academy, in Pall-mall, where were to be seen a most curious col- 
ection of elegant and capital performances in oil, crayons, enamel, 
sculpture, etc., a great number present. Meeting Colonels Browne 
and Saltonstall at the door of their lodgings, agreed to meet them 
at the Exchange and dine together at three o'clock. 

May 17. Took tea at Mr. J. Green's; Harrison Gray and 
other company there ; having dined with eleven New Englanders 
at St. Clement's coffee-house. 

May 20. Took lodgings with a Mr. Palmer at the Herald's 
office. 

May 21. Visited the Boar's-head tavern, Cannon-street, to 
view the very room or rather spot in which Prince Harry with 
Falstaff used to assemble with their friends Nym, Bardolph, etc., 
to hold their nocturnal frolicks. Agreed to make a company, 
(if feasible,) to dine next Thursday. Returned home, where found 
Richard Routh, who came with B. Pickman. 

June 2. Called at Mr. Copley's, Leicester-square ; afterwards 
at No. 11 Haymarket, the lodgings of Col. Browne and Col. Sal- 
tonstall. 

June 5. Walked to Mr. Green's ; Major Brattle entered, and 
we three took coach to Drury Lane, to see for the last time Gar- 
rick in Richard IIL by command of their majesties, but were too 
late — house filled. 

June 6. To Westminster Hall to hear the sentence of Gen. 



1776.] JOURNALANDLETTERS. 57 

Smith and Mr. Hollis for bribing a borough, who are to be impri- 
soned six months, and pay one thousand marks. 

TO REV. ISAAC SMITH, EXETER. 

London, June 6, 1776. 
Dear Sir : 

We have received advices from America, though not authenti- 
cated enough to find a place in the Court Gazette, still generally 
believed ; there are some who doubt the whole. 

Gov. Tryon in his letters by the packet from New- York, which 
left 2d May, writes that " Arnold having received a reinforcement, 
made a second attack on Quebec, but finding it impracticable to 
take it by storm, he, on the 19th April, after five days' attempt, 
retreated ; in the meantime, the Isis, with eight hundred men on 
board two transports which arrived with her, having landed, imme- 
diately joined the garrison and issued out, disturbing them on their 
march, and destroying seven hundred and fifty men." It is re- 
ported that eighty men taken last February on Montgomery's 
defeat from the New England regiments, incorporated with the 
garrison and behaved bravely ; on the contrary, seventy of the 
regulars entered among the provincials, and turning against them 
when hard pushed, occasioned the carnage stated above. Gen. 
Lee is said to be taken with seventy men by a party of Gen. 
Clinton's, as he was reconnoitering, without firing a gun ; the 
story is told in three different ways, but finds credit. A vessel from 
Halifaxhas arrived, bringing their Governor Legge to answer com- 
plaints. Gen. Washington has issued a proclamation, forbidding 
all rapine and plunder in Boston, a source of comfort to our friends 
here. There is a long list of military stores in the papers, said to 
have been left at Boston by Gen. Howe, but it is thought to be a 
false account. 

London, my favorite place of abode, is, as the peasant said, " a 
sad lickpenny,''^ and truly one cannot breathe the vital air without 
great expense. The numerous applications to the treasury by 
Americans whose pretensions are so mach beyond mine, exclude 
the most distant hope of relief for me, should inadvertence or more 
unjustifiable principles of conduct reduce me to the necessity of 
asking a favor, which I am determined at all events to defer to the 

8 



58 JOUR NA L AN D L E TT E R S. [1776. 

longest period, if it please the great Disposer of events to prolong 
my uneasy abode in this country of aliens for many days yet to 
come. 

To communicate with a friend is almost the only relief from dis- 
tracting thoughts ; for the harmless amusements in which I was 
engaged last summer and fall, and which served to dissipate 
uneasy reflections, now having lost their novelty, delight no 
more. 

Yours truly, 

S. CURWEN. 

June 8. Dined with Judge Sewall at Brompton-Row ; and 
with him, his wife and sister, Mr. Blowers and wife, Samuel Sewall 
and William Browne, was admitted to the queen's palace in St. 
James's Park. The rooms are large, lofty, and extremely well 
filled with pictures; many of them said to be originals of the best 
masters; amongst them are seven Cartoons of Raphael, and a 
large collection of miniatures in gilt frames and under glass. From 
thence to tea at Col. Browne's, afterwards to the opera house ; 
entertained with the opera of Antigono, the Signors Rousini and 
Gabrieli, principal performers, interludes of exquisitely fine dancing. 

June 10. Read " Common Sense,'' published in America, and 
republished here, in favor of American independence; and also 
" Plain Truth,'* an answer to it ; and Provost Smith's oration on 
the Quebec heroes, Montgomery, etc. 

TO DR. CHARLES RUSSELL, ANTIGUA. 

London, June 10, 1776. 
Dear Sir : 

I congratulate you on your retreat from the land of oppression 
and tyranny ; for surely, greater never appeared since the days of 
Nimrod. I sincerely wish well to my native country, and am of 
opinion that the happiness of it depends on restraining the violences 
and outrages of profligate and unprincipled men, who run riot 
against all the laws of justice, truth and religion. Sad and deplo- 
rable is the condition of those few that like Abdiel, amidst hostile 
bands of fallen spirits, retain their primitive loyalty. So strangely 
unprosperous hitherto have been the measures of administration in 



1776.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 59 

America, that the active provincials have taken courage, and ac- 
complished what in contemplation would have appeared morally 
impossible. Gen. Burgoyne sailed from hence ten weeks ago for 
Canada with four thousand Brunswickers and seven or eight regi- 
ments; Lord Howe in ihe Eagle about a month, and the first divi- 
sion of Hessians, consisting of eight or ten thousand, about a fort- 
night before him. Gen. Howe, his brother, with nine thousand was 
at Halifax the beginning of April. The second division, ('tis said,) 
will sail this week, consisting of four thousand, which completes 
the whole number of foreign troops. The whole of the regular 
army on. the continent will not be short of forty thousand men. It 
is surprising what little seeming effect the loss of American orders 
has on the manufactories ; they have been in full employ ever 
since the dispute arose ; stocks are not one jot lessened, the people 
in general little moved by it; business and amusements so totally 
enorross all ranks and orders here that administration finds no diflS- 

o 

culty on that score to pursue their plans. The general disapproba- 
tion of that folly of independence which America now evidently 
aims at, makes it a difficult part for her friends to act. 

By letters from Salem to the 16th April I find they were in a 
quiet state there, and hugging themselves in the fatal error that 
government had abandoned the design of reducing them to obedi- 
ence. Six vessels laden with refugees are arrived from Halifax, 
amongst whom are R. Lechmere, I. Vassal, Col. Oliver, Treas- 
urer Gray, etc. Those who bring property here may do well 
enough, but for those who expect reimbursement for losses, or a 
supply for present support, will find to their cost the hand of charity 
very cold ; the latter may be kept from starving, and beyond that 
their hopes are vain. " Blessed is he (saith Pope) that expedeth 
nothing, for he shall never he disappointed ;" nor a more interesting 
truth was ever uttered. 

I find my finances so visibly lessening, that T wish I could re- 
move from this expensive country, (being heartily tired of it,) and 
old as I am, would gladly enter into a business connection anywhere 
consistently with decency and integrity, which I would fain pre- 
serve. The use of the property I left behind me I fear I shall never 
he the better for ; little did I expect from affluence to be reduced 
to such rigid economy as prudence now exacts. To beg is a mean- 



60 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1776. 

ness I wish never to be reduced to, and to starve is stupid ; one 
comfort, as I am fast declining into the vale of life, my miseries 
cannot probably be of long continuance. 

With great esteem, etc. 

S. CURWEN. 

June 13. Went early to call on my townsmen Messrs. Dal- 
glish and Hastie;* met Capt. Poynton ; Mr. Hastie delivered me 
a letter from Mr. Pynchon. Mr. Thomas Danforth, late from 
Boston by the way of Halifax, and Mr. R. Russell, called and staid 
with me till eleven o'clock at night. 

June 15. Accompanied Mr. Danforth to Gov. Hutchinson's 
and Judge Sewall's. 

June 18. Called on Mr. Hughes, who invited me to a second 
visit to his seat at Hoddesdon; showed me a Massachusetts libel for 
a transport from London, signed by the new judge of admiralty, 
Timothy Pickering, jun. Dr. Sylvester Gardner bitterly laments 
his unhappy situation at Halifax, with a deplorable account of his 
losses at leaving Boston, etc. 

June 19. To the British Museum, accompanied by Mr. Dan- 
forth. In the library I saw King John's original charter called 
Magna Charta ; a book of prayers of Queen Elizabeth, executed 
finely by herself, the writing very plain, letters fair and well pre- 
served, the covering of red velvet worked in flowers by her own 
hand. The Alexandrian manuscript copy of the Bible, said to 
have been written in the fourth century, containing the gospel of 
Nicoderaus, a forgery composed in that age; all written on parch- 
ment, in capitals, without distinction of words, or verse, or sen- 
tences. Also many of the letters of Charles I., amongst which the 
original of his to Glamorgan, a papist, in Ireland, promising to 
make good his engagement to him in establishing the Roman 
Catholic religion there, and toleration of it in England. 

Thursday, June 20. Accompanied Mr. Danforth to Judge 
Oliver's lodgings, in Jermyn-street, and with him and his son pro- 
ceeded through the Park to Westminster Hall, expecting to hear 
Lord Rochfort and Mr. Sayre's case, but it did not come on. Just 

* Importers of Salem. 



1776.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 61 

loolcing into Chancery, I observed the judges as they were going 
out of Kin<i's Bench turned about and saluted with a bow. Chief 
Justice Lord Mansfield's train borne up by a gentleman. Chief 
Justice of Common Pleas, Sir William De Grey, made a speech on 
a trial between a Mr. Popham, etc., on an election affair. 

Met my townsman, Samuel Grant ; the first time I have seen 
him since his arrival from Mississippi. 

June 21. Called at Messrs. Biowne and Saltonstall's lodgings, 
where I saw Col. Morrow and Mr. Johonnot, of Boston, refugees, 
for the first time since their arrival. 

Mr. Bourne, one of my countrymen, brought me a letter which* 
came by a Cape Ann schooner, dated Salem, 21st April — when all 
was well. My friend's advices concerning the discipline and 
number of the provincial troops, and the number and strength of 
the American navy, will prove, when put to the test, to be a delu- 
sive fancy: civil wars in time make good generals and soldiers, but 
the immense inequality will, I suppose, put an end to this war be- 
fore they will have time to qualify ; in any case, America must be 
ruined, perhaps desolated. I pray God inspire all with a spirit of 
moderation and wishes for a reconcilement and oblivion of past 
confusions ; and may the righteous flourish as the palm-tree, and 
the wicked wither and their root consume away. 

June 23. At Rolls' Chapel. Dr. Hurd, bishop of Litchfield 
and Coventry, preached an ingenious discourse. Mr. Browne, R. 
Clark, E. Hutchinson, Mr. Lloyd, Mr. Johonnot, Judge Oliver and 
son, accompanied me. 

TO MR. ISAAC SMITH, EXETER. 

London, June 26, 1776. 
Dear Sir : 

I have received a letter from Rev. Thomas Barnard, of Salem, 
filled with American fancies; their power, strength, grandeur, and 
prowess, by land and sea ; their policy, patriotism, industry, pro- 
gress in the useful arts, and their fiixed determination to withstand 
the attacks of tyranny, etc., etc. All these fanciful notions will, 
(too soon, alas! to their sorrow,) like Ephraim's goodness, "van- 
ish as the morning cloud and early dew," and prove to be fatal 
delusions. 



62; JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1776. 

Two or three companies of Bostonians are lately arrived from, 
Halifax. I am determined to take a journey westward, and shall) 
stop as near you as possible. I shall, however, depart hence as 
Abraham did from the land of the Chaldees, not knowing whither 
I go; fain would I trust in the same kind protecting hand that 
guided that good old patriarch ; would to God I had his faith, but 
fear my future allotments will be poverty and pilgrimage. 

Your friend, etc. 

S. CURWENi 

, London^ June 27. At Westminster Hall to hear Lord Roch- 
fort, secretary of state, and Mr. Sayre'scase, for false imprisonment 
and seizing the latter's papers. Verdict, one thousand pounds for 
the latter. Tried before Chief Justice De Grey. 

July 1. Breakfasted with Col. Saltonstall; afterwardiS to 
Judge Oliver's to have a sight of Dr. Elliott's letters, conceived in, 
the whig strain. 

July 3. With Mr. Browne visited Bunhill Fields burying- 
ground to view Judge Chambers Russell's grave — passed John, 
Bunyan's tomb, 1688. 

July 5. At Croydon, where the Duke of Bedford has a hunt- 
ing seat. In this place he and the Marquis of Blandford,* youths- 
of twelve and thirteen, are at a boarding-school. I arrived at 
Mrs. Grosvenor's, the lodgings of the two Ingersolls, D. and J., 
and to the latter I had a letter from D. Deberdt, recommending me 
to the house, which I found full, and am therefore disappointed. 
Thence to the church : the vicar is Dr. Apthorp, my countryman ; 
it is in excellent repair ; in a separate corner are the tombs of six 
archbishops, viz. Grindall, Whitgift, and Sheldon, with statues over 
them and placed against the wall, and in decumbent postures, in 
episcopal habits and crowns, the latter of white marble polished, 
and on the entablature the emblems of mortality in middle relief, 
executed in a masterly manner in Italy ; the three others are Wake, 
Potter, and Herring, in flat tombs, and their names, &c. inscribed. 
Dined with the Ingersolls at Mrs. Grosvenor's. 

July 8. Paid visits to Mr. Fisher and Col. Saltonstall; left a 

♦ Afterwards duke of Marlborough. 



1776.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS, 63 

card at Gov. Hutchinson's, who is in the country. Took tea at 
Mr. Blowers' in company with Judge Sewall and family. 

July 10. At Guildhall — Court Common Pleas, in which sat 
Chief Justice De Grey — King's Bench, Lord Chief Justice Mans- 
field — the former addressed the jury in a case of slander in a most 
agreeable manner. 

Speaking of the Standard in Cornhill sometimes referred to in 
books relative to distances, I called on an inhabitant there, but 
could get no satisfaction, he telling me he had himself inquired 
about it to no purpose. But very few are acquainted with the 
curiosities, etc., the knowledge being confined to those skilled in 
city history. 

July 13. Breakfasted with Mr. Oxnard and Mr. Silsbee. 
Asked a man how far it was to Chelsea, and was answered, in the 
true New-England style, " / donH know — about half a mile." 
This 1 note as the first instance, to my remembrance, of the like I 
have met with on this side the water. 

Had a free conversation with a couple of conversible gentlemen, 
not commonly to be met with ; the better sort or gentry being too 
proud or reserved to mix with those they don't know, or to indulge 
a promiscuous chat. 

July 14. Worshipped at Allhallows, Lombard-street ; the of- 
ficiating priest was Mr. Peters, the refugee from Hebron, Connecti- 
cut;* his text 2 Peter chap. iii. verses 1 and 2, "But grow in 
grace," etc. Mr. Peters dined with me. 

* Author of a travestied Listory of Connecticut. 



64 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1776. 



CHAPTER II. 

London, July 15. Walked out with the intention of paying my 
respects to Gov. Hutchinson before leaving London — met him in the 
Park with Mr. Flucker, and took leave; receiving copies of two 
letters with leave to show them to Mr. Isaac Smith, one being to 
himself and the other to Mr. Hollis, both from Dr. Elliott, and 
intercepted by Gen. Howe. 

Tuesday, July 16. Left home at an early hour in the Salisbury 
coach. On Hounslow heath, through which we passed, three 
monuments of human folly and divine justice — as many gibbets 
with the remains of so many wretches, hanging in chains; a little 
beyond, a high obelisk crowned with a large gilt ball, erected by 
the late duke of Cumberland at his lodge in Windsor Park. On 
the other hand, at a distance of twenty rods from the road, another 
obelisk, ending in a blunt point ; two miles further stands a more 
lofty one, scarcely finished, of four stories, illuminated by square 
windows, the design of the present duke. The road from Wallop 
to Salisbury is delightfully pleasant, and hard as a garden gravel- 
walk ; at four miles' distance is to be seen the spire of the cathe- 
dral, supposed to be the highest in England. The land rising 
gradually from the plain till the sight is bounded by a ridge of high 
hills, from the rising filled with enclosures, rows and clumps of 
trees, and many farm-houses ; alighted at Salisbury at seven 
o'clock in the evening. 

Salisbury, July 17. Started for Stonehenge, a distance of 
eleven miles, the first five through highly cultivated grounds. At 
the distance of three miles from the city, on the right, is to be 
seen an eminence apparently of an oval figure, lying beyond the 
improved grounds, enclosed with hedges, etc., which seems to be 
raised by art, or formed into its present shape or figure, at least, by 
the hands and industry of man ; the ascent to the plain on which 
its base stands is above the level of the improvements on the hither 



1776.] JOURNAL ANDLETTERS. * 65 

side ; it is an easy slope at an angle of 45°, and measures round one 
mile ; on the rim of the first slope are cornfields ; within is a slope 
of the same figure as the lower, rising nearly to the same height ; 
in a plain on one side is planted a small group of trees ; this spot in 
former days was the site of Old Sarum, containing about sixty 
acres, unless I am misinformed, without one house on it, now enti- 
tled to send two members to parliament. On the lower plain, and 
bordering on the slope, stands one house, where dwells a family 
supplying the curious who visit there with punch, wine, and tea. 
The view under this long range of hills presents a most pleasing 
and variegated prospect. 

Turning out of the road over the lawn, void of trees, bushes, 
stones, and as even as a bowling green, we soon arrived in sight 
of the object of our pursuit, Stonehenge : its first appearance re- 
sembled a company of men ; in different views it assumed very 
different shapes. About a mile from this place, encompassing it 
in a circular line, stand many of those bodies of earth called bar- 
rows or tumuli, supposed burial places of the Druids ; their form 
is globular, from nine to twelve feet in height, and from thirty-five 
to forty in diameter : — their surfaces smooth, all of the same shape, 
and not very different in size. I viewed them well, and remem- 
bering that they never could be counted, I nevertheless set about 
the task with confidence of success ; — my first enumeration was 
eighty, second eighty-two, third and fourth different, so that I was 
convinced of the difficulty of the task and gave it up — almost 
imagining that the Druid presiding over these sacred ruins puzzles 
and confounds the minds of all who make the iniquitous attempt, — 
The outside row ofstones is an imperfect oval, eighteen in number ; 
those upright are about seventeen feet high and about four feet 
wide. Eight very large, but not of so great length, lying flat- 
wise on the tops of the outside row — nine on the tops of those 
within ; fourteen small uprights stand within, in different direc- 
tions or lines ; twenty-eight, perhaps more, lying out of the 
ground — two lying in the ground, that look as if in their natural 
bed. Two columns of the largest size and of an uneven surface 
stand upright ; in one of these near the end, is a small hollow, 
the size and shape of what Don Quixote took for Mambrino's hel- 
met. In the other near the ground, is a small hollow of the size 

9 



66 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1776. 

of a pint basin, said to have been impressed when the devil threw 
the rock at the friar and struck him on the heel. Many other tra- 
ditions, tales and follies are related by the credulous and supersti- 
tious vulgar about this wonderful pile. There is no appearance of 
the chisel or hammer, but in two of the rocks, one very large has 
on each end an excavation about fourteen inches long and about 
seven deep, designed to be placed on the upright ones. The up- 
right one, of which the former lies at its foot, has on top a circular 
rising just the size of those below, and seems as if intended to be 
let into the hollows to keep the arch stones and those lying on the 
tops of the uprights steady and secure. And I doubt not the cross 
stones lying still on the tops of the uprights are secured the same 
way. This pile stands on a lofty eminence of great extent and has 
on it neither tree, bush, shrub or stone within many miles on either 
side, and is called " the plain of Salisbury." Thence at a distance 
of seven miles, I was admitted to Lord Pembroke's seat. In the 
court are fine busts and ^atues. The house is a noble building, 
round a square ; the front is a plan of Inigo Jones, looks over a 
lawn, through which is a natural river improved by art ; through 
the lawn are interspersed clumps of trees, statues and bustos, vases 
and obelisks, rendering the spot delightful beyond description. 
The rooms are filled with antique statues, busts, vases, urns, sarco- 
phagi without number. Among other things a curalis sella made 
of iron and brass — the stone coffin that Terence's remains were 
deposited in, and the urn that contained the ashes of Horace ; — 
also an exact model of the Venus of Medicisand the Apollo Belvi- 
dere ; — was it not for the complaisance due the fair sex, I should 
prefer the latter to the former, ^and believe it is to that principle 
alone that antiquarians are so lavish in their praises of the god- 
dess. On returning to Salisbury, three miles, after dinner I strolled 
to the cathedral ; the pulpit of stone is in the body of the church, 
the reading desk is in the choir ; the ceiling curious and finely 
painted and gilded, laid out in compartments of many figures, with 
roses, &c. in the centre. The windows filled with paintings ; the 
buttresses, pillars and decorations are similar to Westminster 
Abbey. This cathedral is supposed to be five or six centuries old ; 
it stands in a place called Salisbury Close, surrounded by walls, 
having three gates that are shut every night. It has privileges 



1776.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 67 

distinct from the town, and is the residence of the bishop and his 
clergy, besides private families. 

Took coach for Exeter. 

July 27. Two despatches from America on their way to Lon- 
don, with advices that an engagement had happened between Gen. 
How^e and the Americans, with a loss of 18,000 men on both sides, 
and so great was the carnage that one regiment had but five men 
left. On inquiry I believe the account cannot be true to the extent 
of loss. 

July 28. — Exeter. It is remarkable that in many of the 
churches of this city are placed in compartments, or tablets against 
the walls in many places, collections of texts of Scripture. It is 
beUeved that the cathedral has been standing nine hundred years, 
and its ancient appearance justifies it ; the military garb some of 
the statues are dressed in is of the period of the ninth and tenth 
centuries. 

July 30. Attended divine service in the cathedral, to hear, as 
is the custom, the assize sermon preached before the judges, who 
were Barons Eyre and Hotham ; the preacher, a Mr. Simmons ; a 
sensible and serious discourse from Proverbs 14: 34," Righteousness 
exalt eth a nation." 

TO THOMAS DANFORTH, ESQ., BROMPTON-ROW, LONDON. 

Exeter, July 30, 1776. 

Dear Sir : 

********** 

Dined at Whitchurch ; we were joined at table by five gentle- 
men of the turf, going to the Andover races in this vicinity : the 
jokes flew freely, and excited laughter among themselves and af- 
forded me some amusement, although conceived in terms to 
which I was unaccustomed ; — their boisterous mirth and manners 
brought to my mind the descriptions to be met with in books, of 
gentlemen of that character, and is a proof that they have justly 
copied the originals. Again we took fresh horses, and in an hour 
measured eight miles, passing the Earl of Portsmouth's seat, remark- 
able for nothing that I could see, (but yet it covers more ground 
than the neighboring farm houses,) lying just before we entered 
the Andover race grounds, an extent of two or three miles under 



68 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1776. 

a range of naked hills on one side, and on the other by enclosures 
beyond which the road runs, and on which we met and overtook 
multitudes of each sex, every rank and condition, dressed in their 
best attire, to partake of the diversions of the race ; being too 
early, we missed a sight I would gladly have enjoyed. At a dis- 
tance of three miles we descended into the town of Andover, which 
like the situations of most towns in England, is in a bottom, con- 
taining two hundred houses, a church and town hall, with open 
market under it, and adorned with a spire on the top, and a modern 
structure, as many of the houses are. 

********** 

At the distance of eight miles from Salisbury, we passed 
through five or six villages of houses with mud walls and thatched 
roofs, such only being seen for many miles in the west. Alighted 
at last at the Red Lion in Salisbury, having rode eighty-three 
miles in fifteen hours. The houses in Salisbury are in ancient 
style of building, and contain five thousand inhabitants. I peeped 
into the cathedral during service ; the worshippers were the dean, 
five or six ecclesiastics, eight singing boys, and eight as miserable 
looking wretches as ever entered the doors of a hospital ; they 
were literally, as the gospel says of those who are called, " the 
bhnd, the halt," &c., and are hired to attend : and without this ex- 
pedient I fancy the lay hearers would be as few as Dr. Swift's con- 
gregation. The ceiling is as gaudy as gold and paint can make 
it, and in the taste of Henry Vllth's chapel, but not open work, 
and by its appearance has been neglected for some centuries. In 
short, it looks like an old neglected military officer out of service, 
with his regimentals worn threadbare and soiled. Indeed the whole 
church is so slovenly and dirtily kept, that a stranger would judge 
that these stewards of the Lord's inheritance regarded the revenues 
more than the repairs of the mansion house. The pews or seats 
are in a declining, and if not soon propped up, will be in a decum- 
bent state ; — the pulpit of stone, perhaps to denote the blockish 
quality of its possessors. A curious statue of St. Osmond is here, 
said to have been brought from old Sarum, and supposed of the 
eleventh or twelfth century ; but where he lived or died is not 
within the compass of my reading.* 
* Chancellorof England and Bishop of Salisbury under William the Conqueror. 



1776.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 69 

Having performed a ride of ninety miles in seventeen hours, 
alighted in this city of Exeter, my distance from London being one 
hundred and seventy-two miles. The number of inhabitants is 
scarcely seven-eighths as numerous as at Boston in New England ; 
standing on much less ground, and on an eminence in the centre 
of a bottom encompassed by distant high hills ; on one side runs 
the river Exe, over it a bridge some centuries old. The streets 
narrow and dirty — houses of ancient style. The city is encom- 
passed with a wall, in some places almost entire, very high, and 
crowned with battlements ; — perhaps more gates, gateways and 
arches here than in any other place in England. I was told that 
forty years ago there was not a coach to be seen in the city. Here 
are nineteen parish churches, not one with a spire, but having large 
towers and battlements ; and eleven meeting-houses for Presbyte- 
rians, Quakers, Methodists, Catholics, and Jews. The castle 
lately demolished to make room for a court-house. The cathedral 
front is adorned with sixty mutilated statues, having the appearance 
of a thousand years. Among the various monuments within, is one 
erected many ages since, to perpetuate the remembrance of an 
enthusiast, who died a martyr to his folly in presuming to fast in 
imitation of our Saviour ; being a just resemblance of a body 
wasted by hunger to a skeleton. 

I am, with great regard, 

S. Cur WEN. 

Exeter, August 1. Attended the assizes at the castle ; the cause 
before Baron Eyre was a suit of Lord Clifford, a Roman Cathohc 
peer, against a Mr. Prode, for encroaching on the rights of his 
manor of Ringmoor, within which is part of the town of Teign- 
mouth, lying on the river Tyne. Lord Clifford claimed up to high 
water mark, below which for 178 feet he had built and enclosed ; 
but on the trial Lord Clifford made an offer to compromise the claim, 
allowing Mr. Prode to enjoy one half his encroachment for three 
lives or ninety-nine years, paying yearly ten shillings, and surren- 
dering the other half, which terms were acceded to, and the trial 
was quashed. 

August 5. Removed to Sidmouth, a watering place, where I 
propose to reside some time with ray friend, Rev. Isaac Smith, 



70 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1776. 

who officiates as minister to the dissenting congregation, partly 
made up of the company resorting hither for the benefit of sea- 
bathing and drinking; the waters. I am now at Mr. Follet's. 

August 12. Sidmouth consists of about a hundred houses, built 
of mud walls and thatched roofs, except a very few with Cornish 
tile and with shingles, very low, situated in a bottom or vale'; the 
lands about are under good improvement. On each side stand 
two ridges of hills, ending in cliffs, the foot washed by the tide. 
In the town is an old church with a clock and a meeting house. 
The inhabitants chiefly hired out to the Newfoundland traders, and 
for the most part in low circumstances. The town is within the 
manor of Sir Wilmot Prideaux, whose ancestor having mortgaged 
the estate to the ancestor of a person now insane, the leases cannot 
be renewed, and therefore the houses are going to decay, none in- 
clining to repair more than necessary at an uncertainty. 

TO DR. CHARLES RUSSELL, ANTIGUA. 

Sidmouth, August 14, 1776. 
Dear Sir : 

Your letter has given me great pain ; people in similar circum- 
stances of distress must be brutal not to feel for one another. Let 
us endeavor to fortify our minds against despondency ; perhaps 
our prospects will brighten ; if not, reason and a submissive dispo- 
sition may greatly alleviate, though they cannot wholly remove 
the weight of trouble. I sincerely wish you and your connections 
a removal of the sufferings you are at present under. 

You are candid enough to place my demand to the right ac- 
count. I would sooner have endured hunger than needlessly add 
to any one's distresses, much less those for whom I am bound by 
many ties to promote their happiness and interest. Do not re- 
member the demand, consult your convenience ; I have not wanted, 
although am reduced to a rigid economy, which you know^ was not 
my case in New England. This watering place, the resort of 
much genteel company for sea bathing, is the most frugal place in 
England ; it is in Devonshire, in the neighborhood of Exeter, and 
about two hundred miles from London. 

Your favors, ever esteemed, I ask a continuance of, and re- 
main, etc. S. CURWEN. 



1776.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 71 

FROM THOMAS DANFORTH. 

Knightsbridge, August 18, 1776. 
My dear Sir : 

Since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were. 
I have received your two epistles, though the last but two or three 
days ago, it having lain some time at Palmer's, from whence I re- 
moved a fortnight this day to Mr. Peraberthy's in Queen's Row, 
six or eight houses north of Judge Sewall's, where I have very 
agreeable lodgings. I neglected answering particularly your first 
letter, expecting every day a second, and having nothing particu- 
lar by way of news. I have now determined to write, news or no 
news, and as you know it is not against my conscience to affirm 
that I saw the same velvet in the loom, for the same reason I think 
it very innocent to make a small budget of news. You will there- 
fore be pleased to understand and be informed, that a few days ago 
the Commissioners with Nathaniel Coffin, Mr. Porter, the Comp- 
troller, the Inspector General, Col. Leonard, Mr. Barack, Mr. 
Mather, Mr. Faneuil, etc., etc., arrived from Halifax ; w^hat recep- 
tion they will meet with is uncertain. You see without doubt in 
the papers the news from the army at Staten Island. Sheriff 
Loring writes Col. Hatch, that he expects to spend the winter in 
Roxbury, and shall clean up his house there for his place of resi- 
dence. 

Col. Tyng whites to Judge Sewall, that when he is settled in 
his house, which he proposes to take at Amboy, he shall be more 
particular. It seems that the accounts they have from the de- 
serters are very encouraging ; that they are much divided upon the 
matter of independency. I think that the enemies of opposition 
to Parliament may regard the matter in that light, and appear 
openly ; that this will be a lucky handle, and will finally be the 
means of oversetting the combination. It is said that there is a 
large party in South Carolina, Maryland, Connecticut, and New 
Hampshire, in opposition ; these will assist the king's troops when 
they are well warmed in dispute with their brethren. It would not 
be strange if the rebel interest should melt like snow in a hot sun, 
when once it begins to fail. All but the congress have an excuse 
for revolting, and think that they save their honor. Thousands will 



72 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1776. 

revolt from them upon a specious pretence, who never would if 
such could not be found. You have seen in the papers an account 
of the Yankee privateer brought into the river ; one Johnston of 
Boston, is master, and Downer of Roxbury, surgeon. The prisoners 
are now on board of a 74 gun ship at Sheerness. They give a more 
favorable account of the situation of the friends of government than 
we have before had, but some allowances must be made. Daniel 
Bliss writes from Quebec, that they have reason to think that above 
a thousand men about Albany are ready to join Gen. Burgoyne ; 
he makes the loss of the rebels in that expedition to be 2000 men, 
killed, prisoners, and by sickness, upon a moderate computation. 
The 400 men, inhabitants of Staten Island, with others as they 
come in, are put under command of Gen. Ruggles, who is to keep 
possession of the island. I am much obliged by your agreeable 
account of your journey, but an account of your journey to London 
again will be more agreeable, which I hope will be soon. Our 
friend Bourne is gone into the country, so that I am at some 
loss to give you so particular an account of the lottery as I could 
wish. There is much about Molesworth's Plan in the Ledger of 
this day. I shall examine it, and if it does not contain the whole 
matter, will insert the remainder before I close this letter. Bourne 
said that he discouraged him from purchasing chances. Brattle, 
Boylston, etc., have returned from France. I have heard nothing 
farther of Porter. Treasurer Gray, Abel Willard of Lancaster, 
and I, have just come from Salters' Hall meeting-house, where we 
heard a Mr. Pickard of Carter-street, near St. Paul's. Being down 
in the city, I took up Molesworth's publication, and found it to be 
the same with what is contained in the Ledger. I see that there 
is an order in the papers for all the militia of New-York to be in 
readiness to march. There will probably be warm work. I find 
that you give no account of your situation in your letter. I sup- 
pose you have found the diamond mine, and choose to engross the 
whole profits. I have paid Col. Pickman as you desired, — he 
made no observations. Mrs. Bray did not know how to direct me 
to pay for the wine and ale, so that remains as it was. I should 
copy all your excuses for your letter, were it not that I suppose 
they are fresh in your memory. I hate both writing fairly and 
copying my own letters particularly. I think I have covered the 



1776.] JOURNALANDLETTERS. 73 

same quantity of paper, and have therefore a right to close. To 
conclude therefore, please remember me to the Doctor. Salute 
Priscilla and Aquila, and all the pretty girls who are in Exon. 
Your very humble servant, 

Thos. Daxforth. 



TO REV. ISAAC SMITH, SIDMOUTH. 

Bristol, August 24, 1776. 

Dear Sir: 

The regret with which I left Sidmouth was in some measure 
balanced by the agreeableness of the day. To pass by our first 
stage, the least amusing, our second to moisten our driver and 
horses, for both often want watering, was on the borders of Black- 
down at a place called Southhast, and at " the sine of George Inn, 
heer all sorts ofleckers are sold ;" besides the peculiar taste of the 
painter in spelling, the letters were of so doubtful a form that my 
fellow traveller, Mr. Davis, chose to read ^Heckys," which word, 
(if to be found in the Devonshire nomenclature I am ignorant of 
its meaning,) he, being skilled in provincial dialects, may be ac- 
quainted with. Our third stage was at the Castle inn, Taunton; 
on our way hither we saw a hill called Quantook, so like our 
Indian names I could not help remarking it. After a small 
delay we proceeded to Hillbishop, and dined at the hospitable table 
of Mr. Jirrald ;* his good husbandry is fully repaid by a plentiful 
harvest of apricots, nectarines and apples ; nor is his table without 
the best cider England affords, which is scarcely equalled by the 
most sparkling champagne. Our next stage was at Bridgewater ; 
from the inn we walked to Miss Sealy's garden, planned to pro- 
mote the wise purposes of thought and meditation. Here we re- 
galed ourselves with green gages and gooseberries, the boughs 
being loaded. At the bottom of the garden is a small piece of 
water, filled with large carp, brought to the SJirface by pieces of 
bread thrown in, which they rose to catch, a pleasing sight I never 
before had. Our next stage was eighteen miles to Cross, where 
we were told the beds were full, and they had no horses ; so we 

* A dissenting minister. 

10 



74 JOURNALANDLETTERS. [ 1776. 

could not pass the night nor be carried further : — however, we met 
a friendly stranger in Mr. Cornelius Frye, of Bristol, who gave up 
his room. Here vve supped all together anil passed our time so- 
ciably, talking treason and justifying American independence. 
Next morning we left at seven, and passing Clifton on the left 
covered with excellent improvements, arrived at Bristol, the Bush 
inn opposite the Exchange. 

Yours truly, 

S. CURWEN. 

Bristol, August 24. Called at Mr. Waldo's; he being absent, 
I left a card. Soon after he came and carried me to his house to 
dinner, in company with John Boylston and Mr. Browne ; — after 
dinner walked over Kingsdown Hill to the Hot Wells on the 
banks of the Avon, where I took a glass of the water and returned 
to the inn. Soon after left for Birmingham, through Newport, 
Gloucester, and Upton, which latter reminded me of the incident of 
the amiable Sophia Western's muff, which Tom Jones picked up in 
his own bed. There are many originals of Squire Western, but I 
am told Mr. Allen, late of Bath, was the character from which 
Mr. Allworthy was drawn. Hence to Worcester, a handsome town, 
wide streets, a fine cathedral in good repair, but not abounding in 
funeral monuments. At last we arrived at Birmingham, which, in 
its general appearance, looks more like Boston than any place in 
England. 

Birmingham, August 26. Hearing that Judge Oliver and Mr. 
Lloyd were in town, I repaired to the inn, but they had departed. 
I met them soon after as ihey were leaving town for London via 
Woodstock, and gave a letter to Mr. Danforth. 

August 28. Walked out and met a Quaker at the door of his 
house, near the outskirts of the town, on the Litchfield road, com- 
mandinof an agreeable prospect bounded by distant hills in an ain- 
phitheatric line ; engaged him in conversation, and by invitation 
went in for half an hour; found him a sensible man and a warm 
American, as most of the middling classes are through the king- 
dom, as far as my experience reaches. Beyond the Tweed, I know 
not; however, the Scotch within, to my knowledge are antiministe- 
rialists. Passed an agreeable day at Mr. Russell's, two miles out of 



1776] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 75 

town ; he is of the house of Smith, Son & Russell, who ship 
largely to New-York and Boston. He has been in America, and 
is her steady and ardent advocate. 

Jiiigiist 31. Stepped to a gun-maker's to see a rifle, (the first 
I ever saw,) and many other pieces of peculiar construction I was 
a stranger to; the master is to make six hundred rifles for govern- 
ment, but is in principle an antiministerialist, as is the whole town. 

Sept. 6. Sir William Meredith the other day declared at Mat- 
lock, that he looked on the violent measures against America to be 
very impolitic, and that Lord North was of the same mind, and 
only joined out of respect for the king, who was warm and deter- 
mined to pursue such at all events, even though with the loss of a 
hundred thousand men. It will be well if a pertinacious adherence 
to a certain plan of conduct respecting that unhappy country be 
not productive of evil fruits to the interests of the king and empire. 
May it please God to infuse wisdom, prudence, and moderation into 
the breasts of those on whose counsels the fate of both depend. 

Sept. 9. A letter in the London Chronicle, said to have been 
brought by the Isabella, an advice-boat from Quebec, relates a 
defeat of the provincials before Crown Point, with the loss of eight 
hundred killed, eight hundred wounded, and four hundred taken 
prisoners; and that the garrison is in Gen. Carleton's hands, said 
to have been obtained July 23d ; a story well told, but which wants 
proof. 

Sept. 10. Was told as we passed Castle inn, that Lord North 
was momently expected there from Sand well, the Earl of Dart- 
mouth's seat. 

Sept. 11. Took coach for Bristol by the way of Tewksbury; 
met an officer who gave himself great liberties respecting America, 
to which I took the freedom of giving several severe checks, and 
my companion spared not till he was thoroughly silenced and 
humbled ; he said many ungenerous, foolish and false things, and 
I did not forbear telling him so. 

Sept. 16. At 11 o'clock P. M. departed from Birmingham for 
Bristol ; at Worcester took a relay of horses, and arrived at 
Tewksbury at breakfast ; went to the church, almost the magnitude 
of a cathedral, which contains many curiosities ; in a flat grave 
just before the choir is buried Prince Henry, son of Margaret of 



76 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1776. 

Anjou, widow of the unfortunate King Henry VI., who was slain 
by Richard, Duke of Gloucester, after the defeat of the Queen at 
" the battle of the bloody meadow," so called from the tradition 
that it overflowed with the blood of the slain on that occasion. 
Here is, also, in a kneeling posture, a statue of George, Duke of 
Clarence, who is said to have been drowned in a butt of malmsey : 
— Richard, Earl of Warwick, the king-m-aker : — Osrick, a king of 
Northumberland, who founded a church on the spot where this 
church stands. In two hours after leaving this place we arrived 
at Gloucester, and in the cathedral saw among many monuments 
that of the unfortunate King Edward II., who was murdered at 
Berkeley Castle. Here also lies another unfortunate prince, Robert, 
Duke of Normandy, whose younger brother, William Rufus, seized 
the crown of England during his absence on a visit to the Holy 
Land ; he was imprisoned many years in the Castle of Cardiff. — 
Over his grave is a statue in a decumbent posture, made of Irish 
oak, which, when struck, sounds as if of metal. This cathedral is 
kept in fine order ; has a vaulted choir, and the most elegant 
cloisters of any in England. Arrived at Bristol at 8 o'clock 
evening. 

Bridal, Sept. 18. To Ratcliff" church, supposed to be the first 
in point of elegance and magnitude of all the parish churches in 
England. It has not in its construction one nail or piece of iron, 
being built and supported by stone and marble only. It consists of 
three aisles, besides two projections which give it the form of a 
cross; — in one stands a great font, and in the other several funeral 
monuments. Over the altar are placed three masterly paintings by 
Hogarth, on the subject of the burial, resurrection, and ascension ; 
for which he received a thousand pounds. 

In this church lies buried Admiral Penn, with an inscription 
recounting his exploits on a pillar ; and suspended on the same pillar 
below are his military garb, sword, cuirass, helmet, gloves, etc. 
This gentleman's services were rewarded by the royal grant of Penn- 
sylvania to his son William Penn, the founder of that province. 

Took tea and passed the evening with Mr. Eveleigh, a native 
of Charleston, South Carohna; educated at Harvard College, three 
or four years after me, who on hearing my name recollected it, 
having been schooled at Cambridge under Master Coolidge and 



1776.] JOURNALANDLETTERS. 77 

boarded at the President's house. He and his family are hearty in 
the cause of America. 

Sept. 19. Accompanied Mr. Bourne, one of my countrymen, 
to the crown-glass manufactory, where the whole process was 
shown. — On 'change met my countryman Mr. Joseph Waldo, 
who procured tickets for our admission to Mr. Gouldney's grotto at 
Clifton, with whom, Francis Waldo, and Capt. Aldredge, (brother 
of the late Col. Bradstreet's lady^ and born in Nova Scotia,) we 
proceeded over Brandon hill, the summit whereof yields the most 
ravishing view that imagination can form, having a large portion 
of the city under foot ; and a finely cultivated country for an 
amazing extent has the appearance of a continued village, inter- 
spersed with towns and seats ; the prospect enlivened with live 
hedges, lofty trees, Dumday tower, Kingwood, and the river Avon, 
running through the city and joined with another called the Frome, 
over both which are bridges; on the latter are the larger ships, 
and on the former only smaller craft. Just as we arrived at the 
gates, there passed by in his solitary walk, whom accident threw 
in our way, a countryman, Mr. Harrison Gray, son of our late 
(Massachusetts) treasurer, who, with his wife, had for a season left 
London and retired to this place, and whom T was glad to see. 
Parting at the gate, we were soon admitted, and, attended by the 
gardener, were conducted through the gravel-walks, kept in the 
nicest order, the whole bearing the appearance of care and indus- 
try; it is on a moderate scale, but well filled with orange and 
lemon trees, etc., and a small piece of water abounding in gold and 
silver fish, supplied from a natural fountain so lofty that a fire- 
engine is erected at one end of the terrace ; the stream runs under 
ground for a distance and discharges itself through an urn, on which 
a Neptune rests with his trident. The ground between it and the 
engine is made rough, scraggy, and woody, to resemble a wilder- 
ness, which I passed going through the main walk. We arrived 
at the door of the grotto, situated under the terrace ; the object 
that presented itself to our view was a lion in a sitting posture, 
and behind, in a dark cave, a lioness, the latter so like life that I 
could hardly persuade myself to the contrary. The form of the 
grotto is octangular, its roof a semicircle, having a dome with a 
round window in the centre ; the diameter about twenty feet on each 



78 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1776. 

side, from the door in front to the mouth of the cave in Mhich the 
lioness is sitting ; to the right and left of the entrance the roof is 
supported by pillars ; covered as its roof and sides are with a vari- 
ety of shells, stones, spars, petrifactions, etc., the mountains, even 
the bowels of the earth and the bottom of the sea, seem to have 
been pillaged to furnish materials to adorn this curious subterrane- 
ous recess. On the left hand, beyond the dome and under a rough, 
cragged stone arch, is a small quadrangular stone basin of water 
supplied by small streams, issuing through almost imperceptible 
channels, over which, in a lying posture, is a female deity. On 
the other hand stands a door, the light and shade of which is so 
artfully painted that it deceived the company, who thought it a 
passage into the garden on a flight of stairs; the most perfect de- 
ception I ever saw. On the door was a miniature of a female face 
with a seemingly broken glass covering it, in the same style and 
manner, and producing the like effect. From hence we ascended 
the terrace-walk four hundred feet in length, the front of the gar- 
den raised forty feet supported by a brick wall ; the rear bounded 
by a border of flowers, and beliind a shrubbeiy of lofty trees. On 
the right is an octangular structure ending in a dome eighteen feet 
in diameter, with seats all round, and having as many windows as 
it has sides, which affords as many prospects, except on the side of 
the garden, where they are darkened, yielding three delightful 
perspectives. 

Leaving this charming spot and Clifton, I bade adieu to my 
companions, and after dinner I departed for Shepton- Mallet, and 
on my arrival met my friend and countryman Mr. Isaac Smith j 
thus ends my ramble for a few weeks. 

Shepton Mallet, Sept. 20. Walked to the market-cross, an open 
structure supported by Gothic arches and pillars, and ornamented 
in front by a few mutilated statues, but whether of saints or heroes 
of antiquity, 1 know not. A few gentlemen of fortune live here, 
but many worthy clothiers; there are two places of worship, an 
Episcopal and a Presbyterian, and the number of inhabitants is said 
to be seven thousand. A Mr. Ames with whom I am acquainted 
lives here on his six hundred a year. 

Sept. 23. Rode through Lord Ilchester's park, passing by 
the late Lord Berkeley's estate, and through a vale to Lord Arun- 



1776.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 79 

die's. One passes on a flight of noble steps lo the centre door 
letting into the hall ; — the walls are iidorned with paintings of 
the most celebrated artists. There is a cabinet of Pope Sixtus 
Quintus, which stands on a mahogany frame ; — the front is of 
ebony; and amber pillars, set with sapphires, emeralds and other 
precious stones, and miniatures of all the Perotti family from 
which he sprang, and elegantly executed in white alabaster. In the 
drawers are prints of the principal royal and noble families of 
Europe in metal frames. 

In these grounds is an airy cross, bought of the city of Bristol 
and transported here; in the Gothic style, four stories; in each are 
four niches filled with kings in their regalia, supposed to have been 
benefactors to the city ; the names in part are, Hem y VI., "Ed ward 
IV., John, Charles I. and II. and Queen Elizabeth. It is finely 
decorated, and in the highest preservation. 

Procured a guide to attend us to Alfred's Tower, which we 
intended to visit before taking leave of Slourton. We soon arrived 
at Inson Hill on whose summit stands the tower, and which is said 
to be the spot on which Alfred erected his standard against the 
Danes ; mostly a terraced walk. The tower an open triangular 
structure, the angles covered by round towers; in one is a flight of 
221 steps making 155 in height; on this is a sound balcony of 20 
feet high, on the top a kind of cross standing on a globe. The 
entrance into it is through a Gothic arched door — ten feet above is 
a stone niche under a finely ornamented arch. In the centre is a 
Saxon crown supported by double Gothic pillars; on each sidestands 
the statue of Alfred in military habiliments and larger than life, 
holding a sceptre in his right hand, his left resting on a sword. — 
Below is a tablet, on which is the following : 

IN MEMORY OP 

ALFRED THE GREAT, 

WHO 0\ THIS SUMMIT ERECTED HIS STANDARD AGAINST DANISH INVADERS. 

HE INSTITUTED JURIES, ESTABLISHED A MILITIA, 

CREATED AND EXERTED A NAVAL FORCE; 

A PHILOSOPHER AND A CHRISTIAN ; 

THE FATHER OP HIS PEOPLE, 

THE FOUNDER OF THE ENGLISH MONARCHY AND 

LIBERTY. 



80 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1776. 

Leaving this grateful monument, dedicated to the memory of the 
most deserving: monarch En";land ever saw, I returned home. 

DO ' 

Sept. 25, To the Poor House to see the spinning-jennies, 
which of late through the folly and madness of the spinners and 
weavers have been the occasion of a riot in this town, which a 
party of dragoons were called in to quell, who are yet continued to 
prevent future ones; three were killed and a number wounded, and 
but for the government orders to avoid bloodshed, more would have 
been. These machines are to twist the threads after the first course 
run from the common wheels, which despatch about three or four 
times as fast as by hand in the customary way. They have been in 
use some years in the noith, and a premium obtained for them from 
the Society of Arts and Sciences. They contain thirty-six spindles 
turned by a common axis, communicating with a wheel placed 
horizontally. 

Sept. 28. Walked with Mr. Morgan over the hills to the re- 
mains of a Roman-way ; the ditch continues, although in an im- 
perfect state, and carried over Mendip hill, running from north to 
south, and from shore to shore. 



1776.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 81 



CHAPTER III. 

Shepton Mallet, Oct. 1. Rode to Bath ; — large meeting of cloth- 
iers from neighboring towns in Somerset and Wiltshire, to concert 
measures to establish, if practicable, the use of the spinning-jenny in 
these parts, which the weavers raised a mob to prevent. Two com- 
panies of dragoons are posted in this town for security of the 
manufacturers, against the infatuated multitude. Met Col. Salton- 
stall, who with Mr. Boylston has taken lodgings here for some 
time past. Departed for Lord Weymouth's seat, called Longleat ; 
his grounds contain the whole parish of Horningsham. Over the 
entrance in front is the date as follows:— " Erected by Sir John 
Thymie, 1569."' The front is an addition to the old structure, the 
remains of a Carthusian monastery standing round a large square 
court. Within are pictures of Henry VIII., Sir Thomas Overbury, 
Lord Strafford, beheaded in the time of Charles I., — Henry IV. of 
France, — Charles I. when Prince of Wales, and his brother James 
n. when Duke of York, General Monck, — Charles II. and his 
Queen, Archbishop Juxton, — Mary Queen of Scotts, Robert Dudley 
Earl of Leicester, Lady Nottingham, — Archbishop Laud, Cardinal 
Richelieu, — Sir Thomas Graham, — Count Tekeli and lady. 

Oct. 11. Visited Glastonbury Abbey ruins, attended by a guide 
named Thomas, w^ho is as great a curiosity as the ruins ; for we 
had no sooner entered on the holy ground than he doffed his bea- 
ver and hugged it under his arm, while with a solemn tone and 
manner indicative of unshaken faith in the legendary tales which 
the folly of credulity and superstition have handed down, by oral 
tradition as well as books, through a long succession of ages, he 
began by informing us of some circumstances relative to a chapel 
standing entire, which I had no wish to enter, nor do I remember 
the tale. Proceeding on w^e approached the walls of the chapel 
in ruins, but not to prevent a perfect idea of the size j^making a 
sudden stop, our guide told us with a solemn voice that the ground 

11 



82 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1776. 

we stood on was twenty-two feet above the natural surface, raised 
by the rubbish from the monastery ; which, if true, is a proof of 
the immensity of the building, and the uncommon thickness of its 
walls, the site of which covers fifteen to twenty acres. Descend- 
ing to the lower chapel, at present filled with dirt to the capitals 
of the pillars, eight feet, this he told us was the spot where Joseph 
of Arimathea built a chapel of hurdles and boughs of trees, 
twenty-three years after the crucifixion. In the upper chapel re- 
main the niches and pedestals on which stood the images of saints 
of solid gold. 

After hearing many tedious stories and incredibilities, we pro- 
ceeded to survey the outside, dormitory, chapter-house, etc. In the 
centre of the east end stood the chapel of the first Saxon Christian 
king of this island ; — from whence through the ruins, at a con- 
siderable distance, is to be seen the further or western end of the 
double chapel we first entered ; both side walls are standing up to 
the roof, and part of the eastern wall, under an arch of eighty feet 
in height, and fifty in width, entire all but the crown. The sight 
of this brought to my mind the magnificent ruins of Palmyra, 
although its ornaments were not of such exquisite workmanship ; 
these being Gothic, but highly finished. Near an angle at the 
eastern end stands a small room ; lately this was turned into a cow- 
house, but not one of the brutual intruders survived a year, as the 
guide informed us of his own certain knowledge. 

Within this holy ground is the holy thorn-tree. I had liberty 
to pluck a branch, proposing to preserve it till my arrival in 
America, (if it shall please God to grant me that favor.) The 
three trees now standing blossom yearly within the Christian holy- 
days, which it is the peculiar quality of this species to do, without 
supposing a miracle; but the craft of these reverend impostors 
knew very well how to turn a natural event into something mira- 
culous, and the superstitious folly and ignorance of the multitude 
for a long course of ages has confirmed them in the same ground- 
less notions. 

We arrived soon at a pleasant road, having in view extensive 
prospects of waste lands, called moors ; ascending a lofty ridge on 
the left, lay that called King's Sedgemoor, remarkable for the de- 
feat of the Duke of Monmouth by his uncle. King James the Second. 



1776.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 83 

From hence, on one of these hills, is to be seen the obelisk erected to 
the memory of the late Sir William Pynsent by the Earl of Chatham ; 
a cheap purchase of an estate of eighty thousand pounds, besides 
ten thousand in money, left to a man the testator never saw. The 
stage from Glastonbury to Bridgewater throughout extremely pleas- 
ant; the distance of fifteen miles we passed in an hour and a half; 
thence to Enmore Castle about four miles, a seat of the Earl of 
Egmont, which is built in the form of the ancient baronial castles. 
Leaving this imitation of old English architecture, we rode to Castle 
inn, Taunton, where we lodged : next day to Sidmouth. 

Sidmouth, Oct. 13. Attended worship at my friend Mr. Isaac 
Smith's, who preached from these words, " The Lord is my portion " 
■which was the last sermon he preached in America : the congre- 
gation the largest I had known since my residence here. 

Oct. 17. Rode to Slade, the seat of a Mr. Lee, one of Mr. 
Smith's hearers, who purchased of the father of the famous Dr. 
Shebbeare, one of the writers for the court against America. Took 
a stroll to the cliffs on the seaside, yielding a delightful prospect. 

Oct. 18. Rode out to view an ancient encampment, supposed 
Danish, and is called Hembury, about fourteen miles. Fording the 
gentle stream of Syd, we pursued our course over Cove Hill, so 
called, being a lofty range, affording on each side very pleasant 
views of a finely improved country ; here we met a number of 
huntsmen on foot, with their long poles and a great number of 
dogs, at default, unable to recover the track of the hare, which had 
found means to elude the dogs' scent. A little beyond the village 
of Burcherton is the seat of the well-known Admiral Graves, whose 
base, unworthy conduct in America has justly brought the curses 
of the people on his head, displeased his sovereign and the ministry, 
and rendered himself deservedly the contempt of all. His house is 
at the foot of the hill on which Hembury fort stands. This fort is 
situated on the extremity of a lofty ridge of hills, in a parish of the 
same name, four miles north of Honiton, and is supposed to have 
been a Danish encampment, (formed in one of their incursions, 
about a thousand years ago,) from its roundish form, the Roman 
being all angular; there are many such in these parts, though few 
so entire. Its form is a very long oval ; and measures, from the 
low parapet or line of raised earth on the northeasterly quarter at 



84 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1776. 

its further end, to the edge or brow of the ditch at the southwest- 
erly, (in which direction it runs exclusive of the ditches athwart 
the hill, to defend or secure the centre enclosure,) about a thousand 
feet ; and the width of the hill on its summit on which the encamp- 
ment stands, with the middle included, is about a hundred feet. It 
stands very high, and commands a view of the vales on each side to 
a great extent. From the foot of the hill in front, for a considera- 
ble distance on either side, it is of a quick ascent ; but from the 
foot of the hill in front there is an easy slope, as regular as a gla- 
cis, although of ten times its length and breadth ; the rest of this 
long range, in a circular form, rises from the plains below as far as 
the eye can discern, regularly and sudden, rendering the approach 
difficult, except from the summit, which is continued to a great 
extent. There are three fosses carried nine feet round the encamp- 
ment, the last deeper and wider than the rest ; the slope is about 
sixty feet. The earth wall, if it may be so called, contains fifteen 
to twenty acres. Here may be traced the foundations of one or 
two buildings, which spot I presume was the officers' tents, the 
place of arms and magazine. The avenue on the south side, for 
there is but one, communicates with a walk running the whole 
width of the hill, and is bounded by a parapet of raised earth, at 
twenty feet from the entrance into the middle inclosure ; between 
this and the brow of the hill at the southwest, is, I suppose, the 
encampment of the army, and here may be seen the effects of la- 
bor; but what were the works, enough does not remain to enable 
us to judge. Having surveyed these remains of ancient military 
defence, we descended by the common road, and arrived at home 
in about three hours. 

Oct. 20. Mr. Samuel Follett drank tea with us; he is an old 
Newfoundland trader, was in New England in 1726, and built a 
ship at Charlestown. 

Exeter, Oct. 26. In the Bristol Gazette is the following : 
" Gen. Howe had landed the British army on the island of New- 
York on the 15th September; the provincials had fled from the 
city, with great precipitation and much loss, towards Kingsbridge, 
where they were entrenched to the number of twenty thousand. 
Gen. Howe, having taken possession of New-York, was encamped 
with his army of twenty-two thousand within cannon-shot of the 



1776.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 85 

Americans, and it was hourly expected he would make a grand 
attack upon them." This intelligence came by the Hanover 
Planter to Bristol, who spoke with the Galatea, Capt. Jordan, who 
left New-York the 17th of September. The unaccountable story 
of abandoning New-York, without a formal attack made on it, 
needs explanation ; no doubt there were justifiable reasons for it. 

Oct. 29. A busy week here, many persons daily arriving from 
all quarters, at the instance and charge of the competitors Baring 
and Cholwich, who are up for the representation of this city in par- 
liament in room of Mr. Waters. The hands of the city officers are 
fully occupied in making out freedoms to those who have a right to 
it. The dispute runs high, " Cholwich forever'^ momently bawled ; 
" Barmg" not so often, though many think he may carry his election ; 
papers are printed and public houses kept open by both, at great 
expense. The joke would be complete should an unthought-of 
rival step in and succeed. 

Oct. 30. Rode out to Lord Courtnay's Belvidere, (about seven 
miles,) a triangular structure of Portland stone j from the top is an 
extensive prospect, having on one side Exeter, Topsham, and several 
seats; on the other, Lympstone,Exmouth, Star Cross, Lord Courtnay's 
seat. Gov. Pawke's, a nabob late of Madras, the river Exe from near 
its mouth, and vessels in the channel, and, what is more curious, 
the house wherein the great Sir Francis Drake was born and lived, 
situated on the other side of the river, opposite the Belvidere. 

Oct. 31. Mr. Shepard tells me there is great danger of a 
French war; may the nation be preserved from this dreadful 
calamity. 

TO THE HON. JUDGE SEWALL, BROMPTON-ROW, LONDON. 

Exeter, Oct. 31, 1776. 
Dear Sir : 

By a letter from Mr. Danforth I was informed some of my 
countrymen were about to apply to the administration for relief. — 
As my residence has been much longer than the most, and the sud- 
denness of my departure from home rendering it morally impossible 
for me to become possessed of much money, and my pretensions, for 
aught I know, being as good as any and better than many, I 
presume I shall not be the only exile left in a forlorn condition if 



86 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1776. 

any provision be made ; and if never made, forlorn I shall truly 
be, my finances every day very sensibly lessening. Had I received 
Mr. Deberdt's letter in time I should have returned to London, but 
it was otherwise ; and if my presence now can be dispensed with, 
it will be more agreeable, as I live pleasantly enough among a few 
acquaintances, at the rate of twenty guineas a year, in a state of 
rigid economy that I never before was reduced to the necessity 
of putting in practice. 

In my answer to Mr. Deberdt, I referred him to you, whose 
friendship on this occasion 1 doubted not, nor need I now repeat my 
request of your assistance if that shall be necessary. 

With great regard, etc. 

S. CURWEN. 

JVbr. 1. I was informed that a messenger from General Howe 
had just passed through the city, with advice that the provincial 
entrenchments, containing nine thousand men from New-York, 
were forced. General Washington wounded and taken, and ten 
thousand men on both sides killed ; some other circumstances are 
brought, but not to be divulged till six hours after the messenger's 
departure from Exeter. Should this news prove true, I wish it 
may not pufFthe British general with pride, and fill him with false 
notions of the unequalled prowess and invincibility of the British 
troops, nor indispose him to oflfer moderate terms ; and I trust con- 
gress may be willing to prevent further effusion of blood and destruc- 
tion of property by hearkening to reasonable proposals, which 1 
hope the House have authority to make. 

Jfov. 2. It is obvious the government is apprehensive of 
a rupture, saying, " it is expedient we should be in a respectable 
state of defence." The truth is there have been some discouraging 
accounts from France for this week past, respecting the intentions 
of that court to assist the colonies, and advices from Spain say 
their ports are declared open to the English colonists ; upon these 
events press-warrants are dispersed through this kingdom, and eight 
hundred were taken on the Thames in one day into the service, 
and five pounds per man are offered for able-bodied sailors. The 
report of yesterday is contradicted in part ; Gen. Washington is 
not taken, but six thousand Americans, and but two thousand 



1776.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 87 

British. This wants confirmation. It is also added that part of the 
provincials only were engaged — a lame account. The fears of some 
and the hopes of others dispose the people to the belief of any 
improbabilities, nay, self-evident falsehoods. 

Mov. 6. The important day has at length arrived, the election 
of a member to parliament ; the city alive, except myself, who am 
dead to curiosity. Interest and the hope of victory have inspired 
all here with ardor. It is amusing to see how warmly their passions 
are engaged. 

Read Sharp's Travels in Italy ; entertaining enough ', his style 
not above mediocrity; his picture of the country, if just, must render 
his own more dear to those who know how to make a just estimate 
of all the valuable enjoyments of life. In reading the above I learn 
that in the state of Florence are nearly twenty -seven thousand of the 
holy order, or if you please, the ecclesiastical troops are under a 
solemn vow of obedience to a foreign potentate ; these with their 
connections, relations and dependencies, render the authority of the 
civil power extremely precarious in case they unite with a discon- 
tented party. 

Amongst other instances of management in electioneering, 
is the practice of closeting and locking up, beds being provided in 
secure apartments to prevent the voters being spirited away to the 
other side, of which there have been some instances, after the ex- 
pense of fetching them in from distant parts. — To prevent confu- 
sion and injustice, in the present election it is agreed to vote by 
tallies, that is, each candidate to present by turns a certain num- 
ber, say ten or twenty. The majority of the city chamber is for 
Cholwich ; the church for Baring, whose managers are the most 
opulent, active and knowing : the contest fierce, some wounds and 
broken heads, but no deaths ; enough to convince me of the de- 
plorable venality of the nation, and the high expectations derivable 
from a seat in that assembly of untutored, inexperienced youths, 
(for half, I believe, have not seen thirty,) called the Parliament of 
Great Britain, or the great council of the nation. The number of 
voters in this city is about fourteen hundred ; and I am told two 
hundred of the most solid, judicious and prudent, thinking neither 
of the candidates suitable, decline any concern, it being immaterial 
to them whether Baring or Cholwich be the tool of administration. 



88 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1776. 

The charge on each side, five thousand pounds, is'doubtless intend- 
ed to be reimbursed from the national fund, for (not their services 
but) their votes ! Would to God this great source of ministerial 
power and influence, and the increasing cause of our public evils, 
the national debt, was reduced to a moderate sum : a sponge is 
dreadful in thought, and would be the ruin of some millions of in- 
nocent widows and orphans ; may that be prevented by a wise and 
prudent expedient, if within the compass of human knowledge and 
power. May a public and disinterested spirit spring up and yet be 
the stability of our times. 

JYov. 8. By the Gazette the wonderful account brought 
from America is, as usual, greatly diminished respecting the valor 
and bravery of one side, number of slain, etc. on the other ; 6000 
provincials and 2000 regulars are reduced to 400 provincials and 
15 regulars ! ! However, by the same intelligence, it seems one 
quarter of New-York is burnt, and some lurkers menace the de- 
struction of the whole city, to prevent which Gen. Howe is using 
assiduous endeavors to discover these incendiaries and prevent the 
intended conflagration. 

JYov. 9. Walked out to the Guildhall to see the conclusion of 
the poll ended by the sheriff's declaring Mr. Baring duly elected, 
the excess being one hundred and one votes. The unsuccessful 
candidate, Mr. Cholwich, supported by the city chamber, went 
home to put as good a face on their disappointment as they could, 
amidst loud huzzas, flags displayed, having various devices, of 
which two were as follows : — the one divided into four compart- 
ments, between each half the word " Cholwich,^' and in the com- 
partments " no bribery ;" the other was the coat armor of his 
father-in-law, (that is to be.) Sir John Duntze, properly embla- 
zoned, and in a scroll underneath these words, "free and indepen- 
dent.^^ Mr. Baring, as is usual, was accompanied by a numerous 
crowd, said to be ten thousand, huzzaing, clapping hands, etc. The 
house he adjourned to was in the yard next to ours, and to honor 
him variegated lamps were suspended in front, forming these 
words, " Baring forever" surmounted by a crown. The evening 
closed with a grand display of fireworks. 

JYov. 11. Mr. Baring's friends wear favors of blue and 
purple ribbons, and some ladies wear an emblematical device in 



1776.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 89 

allusion to the successful candidate's name, being a bear ivith a ring 
in his nose, enamelled pendant on a blue ribbon. The day was 
ushered in by music and a procession, with flags inscribed " Baring 
and Trade.'' The inhabitants of this city appear proud, unsocial 
and solitary, neither conversible nor hospitable ; but a few uncere- 
monious, hearty friends will render any place tolerable, and such 
for that reason is this city for the present. 

JVov. 26. A report prevails that Gen. Burgoyne has destroyed 
all the provincial forces on the lake. 

The later advice is, that Gen. Burgoyne became master of the 
lake by taking, burning and destroying the naval force on the 
12th ult. 

Dec. 3. This day is published a single sheet letter from a 
master of a transport, giving account of the defeat of provincials 
at Kingsbridge by Gen. Howe, having forced the entrenchments, 
kilHng, wounding and taking eight thousand with a loss of two 
thousand only, on the 17th October ; the remainder supposed to 
be fled to Philadelphia. 

Sunday, Bee. 8. Mr. Towgood preached an excellent discourse, 
from Isaiah Ivii. 15. In. his prayer the most just and proper ex- 
pression for the king and royal family, and all in authority, both as 
ministers of state and executive officers ; and although a warm 
and hearty advocate for America, and her claims of exemption 
from British legislation, right of taxation, yet moderate and dutiful 
enough for me, who am far removed from wishing its entire inde- 
pendence ; for it is my firm belief it would sooner bring on oppres- 
sion and tyranny there than the former right allowed in its full 
extent. May it please God to prevent both ; may the unreason- 
able and baneful wishes and attempts of all violent men be 
disappointed. 

Dec. 13. The state fast, appointed by the king's proclamation, 
on account of the American war ; Bishop Keppel preached from 
Deut. xxxiii. 27, " The eternal God is thy refuge," etc., a season- 
able and candid discourse ; he calls this " a civil war,'' and the 
Americans " our unhappy fellow-subjects ;" attempted no justifica- 
tion of the measures of government. I was pleased with his 
candor and judgment. 

Dec. 18. By a Mr. Lloyd of the 20th regiment, just arrived in 

12 



90 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1776. 

the Lord Howe frigate from Quebec, and who was on the lake 
with Burgoyne and Carleton, a report is brought that a merchant- 
man met the Active frigate at sea, and learned that Gen. Wash- 
ington had abandoned the lines at Kino;sbrido;e, left his cannon and 
stores, and that his army is mouldered away; that New-York, 
New-Jersey, Pennsylvania and Maryland have deserted the union, 
and declared for government ; speaks of the Yankees, as he is 
pleased to call them, in the most contemptuous terms, as cowards, 
poltroons, cruel, and possessing every bad quality the depraved 
heart can be cursed with ; and says the regulars at Trois-Rivieres 
took five hundred prisoners, killed one hundred, and lost only 
three men, who were killed by Yankees, who had got upon trees 
and fired down on them. 

It is ray earnest wish the despised Americans may convince these 
conceited islanders, that without regular standing armies our conti- 
nent can furnish brave soldiers and judicious and expert command- 
ers, by some knock-down, irrefragable argument ; for then, and not 
till then, may we expect generous or fair treatment. It piques my 
pride, I confess, to hear us called " our colonies, our plantations^^ 
in such terms and with such airs as if our property and persons 
were absolutely theirs, like the " villains" and their cottages in the 
old feudal system, so long since abolished, though the spirit or 
leaven is not totally gone, it seems. 

TO MR. GEORGE RUSSELL, AT MOSELEY WAKE GREEN, 
NEAR BIRMINGHAM. 

Exeter, December, 20, 1776. 
Dear Sir : 

I have delayed answering you till this time from an hourly ex- 
pectation of hearing some important advices from New-York; but 
in this I have been hitherto mistaken, the season having too far 
advanced to expect any military achievements by the British forces, 
and the Americans you know have formed no active plan of opera- 
tion by land ; confining their views of activity to the depredatory- 
naval department. As to a treaty, I am without the smallest hopes 
of its taking place at present; the Americans do not despair of 
maintaining their independence, and the court, I am told, has not 
given up its view of laying America at its feet, for such is and has 



1776.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 91 

been the court language, and the intention to force her to submit 
to the unconditional authority of parliament ; — however, should 
Gen. Washington be beaten out of his entrenchments, it would be 
but one advantage out of a score that must be gained to make 
them " lower their topsails." The Americans are not without 
resources, whatever may be thought on that subject in England. 

Among others France and Spain are no idle lookers on ; resent- 
ment as well as political reasons influence them to keep the tram- 
mels on the neck of our court till a favorable opportunity may 
offer to strike a blow which shall effectually humble the pride of 
Great Britain, perhaps destroy her independence, or at best reduce 
her to a state of as little importance in the grand political balance 
of Europe as Portugal or Genoa now holds ; and that is the general 
opinion here whatever may be the opinion elsewhere. As to the 
objects of the impolicy of our court, we know from history that 
statesmen to gain a present purpose sometimes disregard the true 
interests and honor of the nation and all distant consequences. 
The King of Spain is England's avowed enemy ; the court owes 
this country a grudge for her success against her commerce and 
garrisons last war ; nor does France love her better ; and ever since 
her open opposition to the ambitious views of that court in the 
beginning of Louis XlVth's reign, who aimed at universal empire, 
has looked on her rising greatness with a jealous, not to say 
envious eye. It is no proof of want of bravery in the Americans 
not to face the regulars; many good reasons may be assigned to 
justify their conduct, and though it be the ground of much reproach 
here, I see in it the effect of sound judgment — that little depend- 
ence can be placed on newly raised troops is well known the world 
over. On account of the amazing expense with which Great 
Britain carries on a land war in America, unless she can command 
the troops of Europe and the wealth of the Indies, men and money 
must in a few campaigns be wanting ; with regard to the insidious 
offers made to America, as the warm partisans against the court 
call them, I pretend not to such acquaintance with court measures 
to determine about it ; if they be so, the greater is the pity. They 
may however, if that should be the case, be taken in the snares 
laid for others, and if good be derived from evil, thanks to an over- 
ruling Providence, who sometimes makes itself subservient to the 



92 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1776. 

happiness of society. That more treasure must be consumed and 
more blood spilled before this impolitic, destructive and fatal war 
is ended, will, I trust, not prove a melancholy truth. 

The accounts of the burning of the city of New-York in the 
Gazette, are full, explicit and intelligible; more than one fourth is 
destroyed, beginning at the fort and all along the Bioadway, 
taking in the college, etc. ; and that it was fired by some northern 
man, is undoubted. A Mr. Smith, son of a clergyman of Wey- 
mouth in Massachusetts Bay, whom and whose family I knew very 
well, was concerned, taken, and I believe executed on due proof. 
I remain, truly yours, 

S. CtlRWEN. 

Exeter, Dec. 21. I am informed that by a letter from an offi- 
cer of character, Arnold and the provincials are represented as 
behaving with great intrepidity and good conduct ; and their defeat 
was owing to the superior weight of metal on the side of their 
enemies. I am rejoiced to find justice done my countrymen, and 
that there are those who can look through the vista of party, see 
truth and speak it. The news of the defeat of General Washing- 
ton at Kingsbridge is confirmed. 

Dec. 22. The above defeat is not very important, save the loss 
of cannon ; few prisoners taken, fewer killed, the retreat not defi- 
cient in military skill on the side of the provincials, nor much to 
the reputation of the British general ; a rencounter not badly nor 
unsuccessfully conducted on the American side. 

Dec. 23. The unimportant, insignificant, fribbling governor 
of Virginia is come back to England. 

Dec. 26. Lord Barrington in his private judgment condemns 
the present war as unjust, and will prove ineffectual, but votes with 
government, as a minister of state. 

TO THE HON. JUDGE SEWALL. 

Exeter, Dec. 31, 1776. 
Dear Sir : 

My httle bark is in imminent hazard of being stranded unless 
the wind shifts quickly, or some friendly boat appears for its relief. 
In plain English, my purse is nearly empty j — which circumstance 



1776.] JOURNALANDLETTERS. 93 

has of late frequently reminded me of an emblematical device in the 
beginning of Fuller's History of the Holy Wars, wherein on the 
right is a purse distended with gold and standing upright, on the 
left the same turned upside down, in a lank condition, emptied 
wholly of its contents, with these words under the former, " we went 
out full" and under the latter, " we returned empty." I do not 
know but I am departed from my country, family and friends, on 
as foolish and fantastic grounds as the miscruided devotees of that 
time did to rescue the Holy Land from infidels, though on opposite 
principles, I confess; they to fight, I to avoid fighting. I now be- 
gin to tremble lest the same fate awaits me that befell them. I 
dislike the motives of the chief agents in America, and their whole 
system from its first small beginnings to its full monstrous growth 
of independency ; and I trust from a very just motive, love of my 
country ; which this place I am convinced has no tendency to pro- 
mote the welfare of. But what of that? It is my duty, and sure 
the state is not to reward the'loyalty of every subject ; the court in 
this case would have more than enough to do to satisfy the demands 
of all claimants. 

I cannot foresee what I may hereafter do, but easily that I must 
suffer huno-er and nakedness in the comfortless mansions of the 

a 

wretched. These ideas I have not been accustomed to associate. 
Seneca and many moral writers, heathen as well as Christian, with 
all the fathers of the church, luxuriating in the midst of plenty, 
have furnished the world with elaborate, entertaining, and edifying 
tieatises on contentment, and the duty of submission and resigna- 
tion under pain, sickness, and poverty with her long train of hor- 
rors, and really they are amusing to a mind at ease and free from 
the apprehensions of suffering, and make a pretty figure on paper; 
but book philosophy and practical philosophy differ from each other 
widely. Let Seneca and the long list of moralists be brought to 
the mouth of the cave of poverty ; let hunger, thirst and nakedness, 
in all their grisly terrifying shapes stare them in the face, then let 
them, if they can. exemplify these ideal doctrines; let a man 
pricked, torn, goaded, and surrounded by the briers and thorns 
sown thick in the path of poverty, take out his table-book and 
write a treatise on contentment and submission to these severities 
of his lot, and with a face of composure be able to recommend the 



94 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1776. 

pleasing doctrines by his own example, I will believe the existence 
of such a singular phenomenon ; but till I can see such an instance 
in real life, which I never yet have seen, I must doubt the existence 
of it anywhere but in books and systems. Human practice knows 
no such airy notions. History tells of savages singing amid tortures, 
but the instances of unfeeling savages are the instances of unfeeling 
savages only ; civilized societies furnished with the means and 
comforts and eleo-ancies of life, afford no instances of such barbar- 
ous insensibilities. Job, indeed, is recommended as a pattern to be 
imitated for patience under the grievous sufferings of loss of pro- 
perty, and pain -, but he, as was natural to expect in his wretched- 
ness, cursed the day of his birth, and who can express himself with 
more impatience ? Poverty with all her attendant evils, to one 
unaccustomed to her presence till old age, is too formidable to be 
vanquished by philosophy and religion ; nor is there a mind in 
such a situation, in its own natural forces, capable of supporting 
itself, and not bending under the weight of grief and despair. My 
doctrine perhaps you may refuse your assent to, but I have said 
nothing my reason doth not dictate in the coolest hours of reflec- 
tion. On the present occasion I feel the force of these truths in a 
much more striking manner. "With respect to my circumstances, I 
will just add that several of my letters containing orders for remit- 
tances were intercepted, by order I suppose of the Amphyctionic 
states of America, or the lesser hogan mogans of some particular 
colony, by which manoeuvre my friends knew no more of my cir- 
cumstances than if I was in the region of the moon. 

The melancholy event in your family drew from my eyes the 
tears of sympathy, well knowing the grief of a tender parent for 
the loss of a beloved offspring ; and if you will not apply to me 
Augustus' answer to the Trojan ambassador, I will add, you may 
believe with sincerity, my real and unfeigned grief at the loss, 
which I pray God to support you under. 

Yours, etc. 

S. Cur WEN. 



1777.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 95 



CHAPTER IV. 

Exeter, Jan. 1, 1777. — This day is very near the commence- 
ment of my sixty-second year, being three days later ; my birth- 
day was the 28th ult, ; may this year be more productive of moral 
improvement than ray last was, and if it shall please the righteous 
Disposer of human events to continue the dark cloud now hanging 
over me another year, may he support me under the dispensation, 
and enable me to discharge my duty, if not with alacrity, with 
composure and an unreluctant temper. 

June 5. Attended worship at Bow-church. Mr. Manning 
preached a pleasing discourse on ^^ friendships^ which, like all fine 
pictures, was too highly colored and above life. 

TO THOMAS DANFORTH, ESQ., LONDON. 

Exeter, Jan. 11, 1777. 
Dear Sir : 

The success of the British arms does not raise my hopes ; the 
political states of America have resources much greater than you 
and I may be acquainted with. The courts of France and Spain 
are too vigilant to let slip so fair an occasion of revenging 
themselves for the losses and disgraces of their fleets and armies, 
sustained from British troops last war, not to avail themselves of 
this conjuncture. The advices from both countries but too justly 
afford shrewd suspicions of their unfriendly designs towards Great 
Britain, and God only knows the consequences ; the colonies may 
be lost, and Great Britain, perhaps, in the event, may be very well 
off if she can maintain her own independence. These are suggestions 
of a mind in quite a different state from your " head-quarter" folks, 
who, in our country language, count their chickens before they are 
hatched ; if they would deign to take me into their counsels, I 
should advise them to be more sure of a victory before they cele- 
brate the triumph. The continuance of our evils is to my sickly 



96 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1777. 

imagination much longer than the court conceives ; but what is to 
become of me in the mean time ? I need not take a peep into 
futurity to know. * * * * * * * * 
I w^ant to know a thousand things, and ask a thousand questions, 
which you at the source of intelligence are acquainted with, rela- 
tive to America and American exiles, but of which I am as igno- 
rant as if in New Zealand. If I continue here much longer, I 
shall be fitter for a hermit's cell; indeed I have thought, nay, often 
wished for one, which at my time of life, and with my prospects, 
would be a most welcome retreat. 

I remain yours, S. Curwen. 

TO HON. JUDGE SEWALL, LONDON. 

Exeter, Jan, 19, 1777. 

Dear Sir : 

So little did I know myself, so ignorant of consequences I might 
have foreseen and avoided, had I possessed common discernment, 
that, for what now appears to me a chimera, I abandoned ray 
dwelling, friends and means of life, which you know I possessed in 
no small degree, and might, as the event proves, have retained 
on the comparative trifling condition of insults, reproaches, and 
perhaps a dress of tar and feathers ; — an alternative I now see 
much to be preferred to the distresses of mind I am daily suffering. 
The licentiousness of an unruly rabble, saving personal outrages, 
with a plentiful purse, is an envied state to liberty, in the mildest 
government on earth, attached to poverty with its horrid train of 
evils ; this you may regard as a paradox, and so will all who are 
at ease. 

I think it is Lucan who says, a good man struggling under the 
storms of fate in adverse fortune, is a noble sight, and well pleas- 
ing to the gods. It may be so — may it be his condition on whom 
the gods have bestowed fortitude enough to oppose the storms ; 
for myself I had rather sail on a pacific ocean, and would willingly 
dispense with some degree of honorable exaltation hereafter for a 
more favorable state of trial here. But enough of this ', — to come 
to matter of fact. 

With great esteem, 

S. Curwen. 



1777.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 97 

Jan. 31. Lord Chesterfield being asked what he thought of 
the three Georges, answered, " 1, George the wise, 2, George the 
prudent, 3, George the unfortunate." — I am afraid his inflexible 
temper, and the falling off of one of the richest jewels from his 
crown on the day of his coronation, forebodes a dismemberment of 
the most rich and valuable of the English dominions ; — whether 
Ireland, America, or the East Indies, I pretend not to foretell, but 
fear one or the other, perhaps all. France and Spain will not fail 
to avail themselves of our national folly to revenge their former 
losses and disgraces. The English, though brave, are not dis- 
cerning ; they every day increase the relative strength of the ene- 
my by lessening their own real power. The end may possibly be, 
instead of securing the dependence of the American colonies, the 
loss of their own independence. May God in his mercy prevent 
this mortifying event, if it shall be for the general good. 

TO HON. JUDGE SEWALL. 

Exeter, Feb. 5, 1777. 
Dear Sir : 

Accept my sincere thanks for your last kind and friendly favor, 
and for the prospect it afforded me of hearing again soon. * * * *■ 
I presume the * * * * are too full of more important concerns to 
attend to these lesser matters; however if it be * * * * and we 
may rely on a * * * * I can cheerfully dispense with a few 
weeks' delay j * * * * but such is the whirl and impotence of hu- 
man affairs, that while we are on this stage we are often obliged 
to play different parts ; I wish never to act an unworthy one ; my 
only solicitude now is to pass off with decency, and escape with- 
out a hiss, — but enough of this. 

On the possession of Rhode Island without loss of blood, may it 
be attended with better consequences than my gloomy, foreboding 
mind suggests. I fear France and Spain too closely watch the 
motions of this nation to suffer us to avail ourselves of the advan- 
tages gained over the foolish, deluded countrymen of ours, which, 

but for the duplicity of those courts, would yield me a pleasing 

. ****** 

prospect. 

I often think of our common progenitor, Father Adam, on 

13 



98 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1777o 

his being driven out of Paradise by an angel with his flaming 
sword : 

" The world was all before him, where to choose 
His place of rest, and Providence his guide." 

With this difference between us, his banishment was by an angel, 
and for a transgression ; mine by men almost as bad as devils, and 
for none : — I am afraid our lot is also different in a third respect, he 
had Providence for his guide, and I seem to be left to an ill-judg- 
ing, foolish mind ! * * * * 
* * As you are at the source of intelligence, 
shall be glad to be favored with an answer to the following que- 
ries: viz. — Is there a probability of a French or Spanish war? 
And in that case, will Great Britain send more troops to America ? 
Will General Clinton be reinforced ? Will any Americans be 
allowed to depart for America, and in what character ? And if 
so, will it be prudent for me to embrace the opportunity and de- 
part 1 Have you seen the Articles of Confederation ? Are they 
real, or fictitious and made here 1 Is there any late news from 
Generals Howe or Clinton 1 And if so, what is it ? 

******* 

Very truly yours, 

S. CURWEN. 

Feb. 13. A reverend, known by the name of the Maccaroni 
Doctor, is in Poultry Compter for forgery, and has confessed to the 
sum of ^64200 sterling ; his real name Dodd ; he figures in the 
tete-a-tetes in the magazines, and unless defamed, is a worthless 
character, though noted for some serious publications in the com- 
mon routine. He has two chapels and the Magdalen under his 
care. 

It is reported that six hundred Hessians in an engagement with 
the provincials are slain, and many wounded. 

Feb. 20. The American high treason bill having passed through 
two readings and to be printed, giving the king power to imprison 
any person suspected of favoring, aiding or abetting the Americans, 
without liberty of bail or mainprize, has raised an alarm in peo- 
ple's minds universally, as it suspends the habeas corpus act, that 



1777.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 99 

great bulwark of English liberty, as it is called ; and it is suppos- 
ed to aim at some characters obnoxious to administration. Such 
is the language of those who do not affect the present ministerial 
measures respecting America, while the advocates on the other 
hand plead the necessity of such a bill to render government secure, 
as without it those who are and shall be hereafter taken, cannot 
be kept in custody and brought to trial for what they call piracy 
and treason. May the remains of English liberty and the consti- 
tution not be overlooked and lost in this fatal quarrel. Charles 
James Fox said on this occasion, that four«acts were over, and this 
was the first scene in the fifth act, (alluding to the enormous power 
given the crown,) and shows the precarious tenure on which the 
liberty of England is held. 

TO REV. ISAAC SMITH, SIDMOUTH. 

Exeter, Feb. 20, 1777. 
Dear Sir : 

I have received a long letter from Judge Sewall, in conse- 
quence of which I am going to London, and shall depart from 
hence next week. God bless you and succeed your pious endeav- 
ors to reform a very wicked world. May we preserve ourselves 
unpolluted from the defilements thereof j pray don't neglect to 
write to your old friend and companion. 

S. Curwen. 

TO THOMAS DANFORTH, ESQ., LONDON. 

Exeter, Feb. 20 , 1777. 
Dear Sir : 

Your information of * * * * * puts into my memory 
many proverbs, of which, if it did not look too like Sancho Panza, I 
could string near a dozen apropos. You tell me it is owing to my 
being considered a merchant simply ; truly I think I have proved 
myself a very simple merchant, and brought my wares to a wretch- 
ed poor market — thanks to the kind misadvisers of * * * * 
but they forgot or perhaps never knew that I had been in the com- 
mission of the peace more than thirty years; nearly the same 
period was impost officer for the county of Essex, and a captain 
in the first Cape Breton regiment, for which I have never received 



100 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1777. 

any gratuity or recompense ; but no matter, past services are easily 
forgotten, and the 7iovi homines are like to reap all the emolu- 
ments. 

Please put the inclosed into a bag for Bilboa at New Lloyd's 
Coffee-house, Exchange ; be assured it contains no love or treason ; 
the times admit of writing on neither. 

As to my return to London, I must not think of it, for the 
operation of this new law, like the fifth act in the reign of Charles 
II., banishes me effectually, and of course from every, corporation 
in England, and will oblige me to take up my residence from 
lienceforth in some village. 

I remain, etc. 

S. CURWEN. 

Exeter, Feb. 27. Set off at six o'clock in the diligence for 
Plymouth ; at ten alighted at Ashburton, nineteen miles, for break- 
fast ; at three arrived at Plymouth. 

Feb. 28. Having taken a view of Catwater harbor, Plym 
river, etc., I proceeded to the citadel, standing on an eminence, 
being the eastern extremity of a range of bluff highlands command- 
ing a fair prospect of the entrance from the sound, in the middle 
whereof is an island, fortified ; the town appearing almost under 
foot. Procuring a coach, rode to the Dock, lying at the distance 
of two miles, passing through a settlement of a hundred houses on 
the hither side of a stream dividing Lord Edgecombe's estate from 
Sir John St. Aubin, on whose land the dock is built, and of whom 
the ground is rented, paying him yearly as lord of the manor. 
There are many ships in the yard, chiefly on the Tamar river, (to 
the east of which the dock-yard lies,) amongst others the Royal 
Sovereign, the Queen, the Augusta, the Invincible ; and at the 
quay lay the Blenheim of ninety guns, on board of which I was ; 
and on the stocks three large ones, and the Royal George of one 
hundred guns. Passed from thence to the dock, compassed by 
hewn stone, into which the water flows to the height of twenty-six 
feet in some and less in others ; the water is measured by pillars, 
whereon figures are marked, and is admitted by great gates, open 
and shut as needed. The rope- walks are of stone, of a thousand 
feet in length ; the work is wrought under cover, the pitch and tar 



1777.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 101 

being in vaulted cellars run athwart the building, having no com- 
munication vi^ith each other. Each particular department has its 
place detached from the other, and each store distant from another. 
The stores are immense, and nothing less than the riches of the 
whole earth seem capable of supporting such an expense. The 
nuijpbers daily employed in the various branches are, I am told, ten 
thousand in the yard, and regularly called over three times a day. 
The great regularity with which business is conducted is very ob- 
servable, and,.indeed, considering the incredible variety of branches, 
and immense quantities of stores, the most perplexing confusions 
would otherwise ensue. I did not hear an oath, nor see any rude- 
ness during my stay in the yard. Within the walls are the officers' 
houses, and many very genteel, particularly the row in which 
the commander lives, with a handsome avenue and a decent chapel. 
At twelve o'clock the workmen regularly go out in order, two and 
two, to their dinner, and the axmen suffered to take as many chips 
as they can carry, furnishing families with fuel, and the unmarried 
with pocket-money. A little beyond the yard, containing fifty or 
sixty acres, inclosed with a high wall, is the gun-dock, a square 
where the artillery apparatus is lodged, and a small commodious 
armory, but very much inferior to that of the same size in the 
Tower of London. On our return took the route through the quarter 
called the Storehouse, detached from the dock by a river, over 
which is a bridge, and belongs to Lord Edgecombe, consisting of 
a hundred houses, and additions are daily making ; in this is a building 
called the long-room, appropriated to tea, punch, wine, etc., for pri- 
vate companies and pubhc assemblies, and there is an elegant room 
with drawing-rooms adjoining, nearly fifty feet long, about thirty 
wide, and twenty-five high, with two handsome glass chandeliers 
and a music-gallery ; not far from this is a building with large 
areas encompassed by high stone fejices, called the Old Mill Prison, 
now fitting up to receive American prisoners. From this we as- 
cended a high bluff-head reaching to the citadel ; whilst here, was 
not a little mortified to see an American privateer prize coming 
into the harbor from Dartmouth, nor were my ears a little 
wounded to hear another sold by auction. » 

Plymowth, March 1. Being called at six o'clock, I arose and 
entered the vehicle alone, taking up a country couple at Squire 



102 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1777. 

Parker's lodge; first stage at Ivy bridge, eleven miles, where 
breakfasted, and from thence alighted at 12 o'clock at Totness, 
from whence I departed to Mrs. Wingate's, late Sophia Reed, who 
kindly received me ; from thence, after an hour's rest, set off for 
Newton Abbott and Newton Bushel, separated only by a bridge, 
the former being the name the whole goes by : passing by ^r. 
Coxe's seat called Penmore Park, and at six o'clock alighted in the 
churchyard, Exeter. 

Exeter, March 7. I received a letter from London informing 
me of my wife's health and welfare in November last, and that she 
had been obliged to pay ten pounds sterling to find a man for the 
American army in my stead. This intelligence I received by a 
letter from Doctor John Prince, at Halifax. Left for Bristol in the 
diligence, and arrived at the Bush tavern, opposite the Exchange, 
at eight o'clock evening. 

Bristol, March 8. Entered the diligence for London at one 
o'clock at night — the frost was so intense that our breaths formed 
a hard cake of ice on the glass, scarce to be taken off by the nails. 
At the city of Bath we arrived, a distance of twelve miles, almost 
stiffened with cold ; here I attempted to thaw myself, but this 
expedient I fancy only rendered my body and feet more susceptible 
of the cold ; suffering, till the sun arose and chased away the frost, 
inconceivable pain. At Calne we changed horses again, and 
attempted a second thaw with better success than the first, being 
aided by the sun then beginning to bless the upper hemisphere, 
shining in a cloudless sky. From hence to Marlborough the road 
lies over a place called the Down ; at the entrance is a hill, insu- 
lated in the form of a half egg, with the summit cut down to a 
plain, and is called Silbury, supposed to be made by art or the 
hand of man, on which are some of the bodies of earth like those 
surrounding Stonehenge, called tumuli ; conjectured to be burying 
places of the ancient Druids. Hence to Froxfield, on the borders 
of which is an almshouse for the reception of forty -five tradesmen's 
widows; it has two fronts, each one hundred and fifty feet long, 
of brick. The next town is Hungerford ; hence to Newbury, a 
town larger in extent and more numerous in inhabitants than Marl- 
borough. Near this town are many single houses, which have the 
appearance of wealthy persons' residences; and on a pleasant plain, 



1777.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 103 

commanding also a view of Newbury, lying to the right as one 
comes from Bath, is a parish called Speen ; at the entrance is a 
lofty building to be seen about half a mile distant, on a ridge 
of hills, having a round tower called Dunnington Castle ; the road 
lies through a street built on what is called Speen lands, belonging 
to the parish of that name, but is connected by buildings continued 
to Newbury town, spreading a great extent on a low plain in a 
bottom. Here we took fresh horses, passing through two or three 
villages to Reading, the distance of which from London is thirty- 
nine miles ; this, the chief town of Berkshire, contains between two 
and three thousand houses ; from a little beyond Marlborough to 
Reading, the land is a continued flat, much of it improved, the 
roads like garden gravel-walks, and very pleasant. At Bayswater 
we again shifted horses, and again at Hounslow ; between those 
two places lies the noted heath called by the name of the latter, 
which we passed over with a slow, solemn pace in the dark, being 
more than an hour in crossing it. We arrived safe at eight 
o'clock, evening, at the Swan-with-two-Necks Inn, Doctors' Com- 
mons. 

London, March 9. Set forward for Judge Sewall's, where I 
dined and passed the evening, Colonels Saltonstall and Phipps 
being of the company : from thence I proceeded to Brompton-Row, 
where Thomas Danforth, Edward Oxnard, and Jonathan Clarke 
lodged, and here I engaged lodgings. 

March 10. Walked out to Judge Sewall's, he having the day 
before engaged to accompany me to the Treasury, where after a 
compliment I received information of a hundred pounds down, 
and a hundred per annum during the troubles in America, which 
I esteem as a providential provision procured by the friendship of 
my respected friend Judge Sewall. 1 received an order on the bank ; 
accompanied by him and Mr. Thomas Danforth, I took a note at 
the cashier's office for seventy pounds payable to myself on demand, 
and thirty pounds in cash, departing very joyous and I hope grate- 
ful to that Being who has, by friends, been pleased in the midst of 
gloomy prospects to set my feet on firm ground and establish my 
goings : may I wisely improve this gracious indulgence. 

Brompton-Row, Kensington, March 11. Took an early walk to 
London, and meeting Governor Hutchinson, was invited to dinner, 



104 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1777. 

which I accepted, and receiving his address ( 147 New Bond-street) 
arrived at it ; company beside myself, his son Elisha and daugh- 
ter, was Mr. B. Hallowell. After dinner repaired to Haymarket 
theatre, where was entertained in a very full house by the humor- 
ous George Alexander Stevens' lecture on heads. 

March 12. Spent the evening with the Club, consisting of 
twelve American exiles, at the Treasurer's house, Mr. Harrison 
Gray's. 

March 31. Rode to Hackney with Judge Sewall to see his 
son Jonathan at school ; returned to his house to dinner, where I 
passed the evening. 

TO REV. ISAAC SMITH, SIDMOUTH. 

JVb. 23 Brompton-Row, March 19, 1777. 
Dear Sir : 

I am at length at my moorings in this port, not much to my 
content except in this one circumstance, the early receipt of the 
unum necessarium ; this, though it chases away all apprehensions 
of future want, does not in every situation yield positive happiness j 
perhaps I am enigmatical, — the solution must be deferred to a per- 
sonal interview hereafter. 

The only article of political news is that Gen. Washington was, 
about the beginning of the present year, declared Lord Protector of 
the thirteen United States of America. Mr. Timmins is arrived 
from Boston via Cork ; he left Plymouth about the first of Febru- 
ary ; says the affair of the Hessians was brought to Boston in four 
days and put them in high spirits ; that the harbor of Boston is 
strongly fortified from the lighthouse and Point Alderton to Fort 
Nell ; the people sanguine in their expectations of a French war, 
encouraged in their errors by the Danish, French and Spanish 
traders, who are numerous in the port. King-street (Boston) 
almost as much thronged with people of all nations, etc., as the 
Strand or Cornhill ; two hundred and eighty-three prizes carried in 
by the 23d December ; four vessels with goods from France, with 
powder, small arms, clothing and other articles ; one with twenty 
thousand suits of military clothing, an article not a little wanted 
among them. Young R***S*** has made twenty thou- 
sand pounds sterling by privateering, and S. A. Otis the most im- 
portant, busy man, as well as one of the richest there, etc. 



1777.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 105 

I fancy I shall take my flight northward, as birds of passage 
you know do, on the approach of spring. There are twenty 
Americans going out with goods to New-York and Rhode Island 
in the spring ; I think the adventures rash. Mr. Amory is delayed 
by his wife's illness, which it is judged will soon end in mortality. 
I have received a letter from Thomas Russell* of Boston, and 
Russell Wyer of Salem, written in the beginning of February, 
all well. 

Yours truly, 

S. CURWEN. 

Kensington, March 20. Evening at club at Mr. Harrison 
Gray's. 

Sunday, March 23. To Christ Church Hospital to see the 
children, to the number of eight hundred, sup ; admitted by a ticket 
signed John Lane, one of the governors. The hall is a hundred 
feet in length, and twenty feet in height, — on one side of which are 
three pictures, the middle one sixty feet long and fifteen high ; in the 
centre King William ; on the same range courtiers, life-guardsmen, 
etc. In the foreground on one hand, hospital children of the males, 
and on the other females, and all in their proper garbs : — on the left, 
or the first from the door, of the same length is a painting of King Ed- 
ward surrounded by his court with a roll, by me supposed to represent 
the first charter of this institution, he being the founder thereof; and 
on the other, a piece of the same size as the last, with a full length 
of Charles II., with astronomical and mathematical apparatus, 
perhaps to denote him to be the founder of the mathematical 
school here. — Three tables were spread, on each side of which 
benches ; on a raised platform are circular seats for the spectators, 
in the centre front a two armed chair for the governor, or treasurer, 
whose name is Burford. Prayers are read by one of the upper 
boys in a pulpit erected against the wall ; then singing by the 
boys accompanied by an organ ; afterwards supper, consisting only 
of bread and butter ; grace before and after, by one of the boys 
in the pulpit, and service concludes with an anthem. The boys 

* An opulent and distinguished merchant of Boston, whose widow mar- 
ried Sir Grenville, son of Sir John Temple, first Consul General from Great 
Britain to the United States. 

14 



106 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1777. 

come up in pairs to the platform to make their bow, and retire, 
some with large pitchers, others with small wooden bowls, others 
with table-cloths folded up under their arras, others with large bas- 
kets in which the bread was brought, and others with lighted 
candles. 

March 27. Walked out with Judge Sewall and Mr. A. Wil- 
lard to Cromwell's garden, which is in ill repair ; drank tea at the 
house of the former, and passed the evening with the New Eng- 
land Club, say " Brompton-Row Tory Club,'" at Mr. Blowers'. 

March 31. Evening with the club at H. Gray's. 

^pril 3. Dined at Treasurer Gray's with Col. Browne and 
John Sargent. 

TO REV. ISAAC SMITH, SIDMOUTH. 

23 Brompton-Row, Kensington, Jipril 6, 1777. 
Dear Sir : 

I have nothing to communicate worth a minute's attention. 
The various news that each morning produces, the following day 
contradicts ; however, in general, perhaps it may be new to you 
to know that the tories here believe the American game of inde- 
pendency is nearly up -, not so your doubting friend. Nay, so very 
sure are some, that there is no small talk of going off in August. 
You will scarce meet one that entertains the least shadow of a 
doubt that government must succeed in the utmost extent of 
its views before the fall ; the reasons and probability of which I 
have not discernment enough to see. I wish the old Latin proverb 
may not with too much propriety be applied to these implicit be- 
lievers, " Canunt triumphum ante victoriam.^'* 

I wrote you in my last that several, to the number of twenty, 
were going off to New-York. I now add that another cargo of 
twelve or fifteen, among whom is young Chipman, is to depart in a 
vessel of 250 tons, laden with goods to the amount of je80,000 
sterhng, defended by a force of 17 guns and 17 men, in ten 
days. It is reported that the new levies, British and German, 
going to General Howe, are in number eight thousand, and that 
General Burgoyne is already gone, and is to take with him from 

* " They celebrate the triumph before the victory is gained." 



1776.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 107 

Canada by way of St. Lawrence river, the greater part of the 
troops at present stationed there ; no further attempts being to be 
made on the lakes this season. Our head-quarter folks say that 
Lord George Germaine declared to Col. Phips, who is going this 
day to Halifax with Admiral Montague via Newfoundland, that 
the first advices from America, he doubts not, will be joyful. All 
here are expecting to hear that General Howe is in possession of 
Philadelphia. On the contrary, the Philadelphia papers are full 
of the great exploits of the American troops against the royal 
army, and the promising appearances of affairs on their side ; and 
if Gen. Washington and Gen. Gates' letters are genuine. Gen. 
Howe and his forces are not in so fair a way to possess themselves 
of that capital as our folks seem to fancy. Mr. Dickinson's de- 
fection has proved a false alarm, he being only retired to his estate 
seventy miles from Philadelphia, for what reasons politicians disa- 
gree. His brother Dickinson and his brother-in-law Cadwallader, 
are both commanders in the American army. Last night I heard 
read the following, from a letter dated Portsmouth, April 10, viz., 
" Two thousand Anspachers sailed for New-York under convoy of 
the Somerset and Mercury : three thousand more Germans are 
expected here to sail directly, under the St. Albans." 

Yesterday morn the late right reverend the Bishop of London's 
corpse was carried by our door on a hearse to its place of inter- 
ment at Fulham — successor unknown ; probably the bench of 
bishops will take care that the see of London do not stand long 
vacant, under the modest pretence of JVolo Episcopari. 

Yours truly, 

S. CURWEN. 

April 11. Drank tea and passed the evening at Mr. and Mrs. 
Savage's, in company with Mr. and Mrs. Carpenter* and Judge 
Sewall. 

* Of Salem. 



108 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1777. 



CHAPTER V. 

Jifril 17, 1777. At seven A. M. departed in company with 
Judge Sewall and Mr. A. Willard, on our intended journey to Ips- 
wich ; our first stage at Rumford, a distance of sixteen miles ; this 
town consists of about two hundred houses, some few modern. 
The next stage at a town called Ingatestone, not unlike the former 
for size and style, distance twelve miles ; Witham was our third 
stage, our fourth Colchester, famous for the manufacture of baizes, 
and here oysters are taken from the sea and put into pits, in order 
to give them that coppery taste so grateful to an Englishman's 
palate, and so disgustful to a New Englander's. The streets are 
ill paved with smallish pebbles, to my feet so harsh and hurtful as 
to occasion frequent complaints. In our progress came to the cas- 
tle, built in form of one of the old barons, not improbable to have 
been one ; it is a square ; the angles defended by round towers, 
pierced like the body of the castle with narrow and long holes, 
through which the inmates were wont to defend themselves by 
arrows ; the whole crowned with battlements formerly, the remains 
being still to be seen. The parade contains a quarter of an acre, 
and is now cleared of the barracks it was once encumbered with ; 
in a room up one flight of stairs, is the library, belonging to a Mr. 
Grey, minister for the town, consisting of about two thousand old 
books. Here a weekly society meet ; its institution, orders and 
purposes, my curiosity did not prompt me to make any inquiry 
into : — hence to the chapel so called, an empty room, containing 
only a reading desk, with a large folio Bible and a large w^ooden 
chair. This castle was in the time of the civil wars defended by 
Sir Charles Lucas and Sir George Lisle for the royal cause, who 
were, after its surrender, shot on the parade and buried under a 
small church in the road ; the precise spot on which they stood is 
carefully preserved in memory, and told the curious visitant. The 
only inhabitants are a family in one of the round towers, and the 
rooks who occupy the holes on the outside in great numbers. The 



1777.] JOURNAI- AND LETTERS. 109 

site of the castle is somewhat high, has pleasant walks round, 
planted with trees, and commands the neighboring grounds that 
lie below it, except on the town side. On the same plain from 
this spot we passed through the streets to another quarter of the 
town, in which lie the St. John's Abbey gardens, now known by 
the name of the pinnacle gardens, for reasons unknown to us, and 
are surrounded by a lofty brick wall, and strengthened by but- 
tresses in good repair. These I suppose are the walls of the an- 
cient monastery grounds, embracing twenty acres. Hence we 
proceeded home, and attended by our complaisant landlord, were 
admitted to a sight of a tesselated Roman pavement lately discov- 
ered in a gentleman's garden, supposed by antiquarians to have 
been the pretorium of an old Roman encampment, it being a 
known fact that Julius Cesar landed in his second invasion of 
Britain in the neighborhood of this place. It is probable herea- 
bouts was a Roman station, and the discovery of this piece of Ro- 
man work renders the conjecture not improbable. 

From hence we proceeded over to a Mr. Great's, to see the 
portraits of Sir John Jacquey and his lady, some of the first estab- 
lishers of the baize manufactories here. These pieces are executed 
on wood, by Vandyke, in 1623 ; we were told they are judged to 
be capital paintings, and it is highly probable they are, if our in- 
formation be true that the possessors' descendants of this couple 
have been oifered a thousand guineas for them. 

Colchester, April 18. Departed at nine o'clock hence for Mist- 
ley, a village in the lands of Richard Rigby, Esq., who is lord of this 
manor. In two hours we alighted at his gardens, in extent four 
acres within the walls ; his hot and green-houses are in fine order, 
and supplied with common trees and shrubs, plants and vines, but 
no exotics that are not fructiferous and of the useful kinds. Thence 
through the pleasure grounds to the house, where, being conducted 
through a more than Cretan labyrinth, at length arrived ; it is new 
and elegant, but its extent does not rise above mediocrity ; its or- 
naments are silk hangings of cream color, with faint shades of 
blue, red, etc. ; chairs the same with three very large looking- 
glasses, a beautiful chimney-piece, of polished marble ; other 
chimney furniture, and a pyrometer I had never seen before. 

We arrived at Ipswich, distant from Colchester twenty-two 



110 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1777. 

miles, where we dined. From the inn, accompanied by the master, 
we walked along the old wall of the town to Mr. John Fonne- 
rau's park ; the house wherein he dwells belonging to it is called 
Christ Church, and was formerly a monastery of friars. The town 
consists of old-built, ill- fashioned structures, and contains about ten 
thousand souls. Its only trade is coals, imported from the north ; 
but few people stirring in the streets, a visible decay. It lies on 
the river Orwell, and is the chief county town. The corn market 
has a small octagonal building, about twenty feet in diameter ; in 
the centre on top stands a female statue as large as life, with a fil- 
let round her eyes ; in her right hand a sword, and in her left a 
pair of scales, loose hung, moving up and down with every puff of 
wind, perhaps to denote the instability of modern justice, or how 
apt it is to swerve from the right line when urged by force or 
interest, or moved by flattery. 

Ipswich, April 19. After breakfast departed from this solitary 
unpleasing town, very like its namesake in New England in its 
general complexion, and in two hours arrived at Stowmarket ; 
and soon after at St. Edmundsbury at two o'clock. Accompanied 
by the landlord we went to view the ruins of the Abbey of St. Ed- 
mund of Saxon time, scattered over near twenty acres now owned 
by Sir Charles Dacres and his maiden sister. The remains of this 
stupendous building are astonishing, many foundations of walls and 
pillars being yet to be seen ; the casings almost entirely taken 
away, scarce any part of the front or sides being left except here 
and there a stone which serve to show the materials. Some of the 
walls were thirty feet thick- The pillars appear to have been from 
eight to twelve feet ; and an arch, of which the foundation yet 
remains, was said to have been seventy feet high, and is near 
forty in width. The foundation also of the Abbot's hall remains ; 
its area forty-five feet each side. In a spot, perhaps the dormitory, 
a few years since was digged up the body of the Duke of Beaufort, 
brother to the Duke of Bedford, Regent of France during the mi- 
nority of Henry VI., and was entire ; a hand taken from it is pre- 
served in spirits, and in the keeping of a physician here. The 
grand entrance is preserved entire, and is a square lofty tower ; its 
angles, like all the ancient fortified structures, covered with round 
towers rising up to the top. The passage way through is under a 



1777.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. Ill 

lofty arch defended by great gates that are kept shut. Many par- 
ticulars were told us respecting the various parts of the house, ap- 
purtenances and avenues, but not being noted at the time, are 
forgotten. Among the notitia of this place by desire I insert 
that the steeple of St. James's church stands at jfifty feet distance 
from the body of the church. A house containing four windows 
in front being between ; and on the steeple on the same side are 
two hour plates of clocks, to answer what purpose was beyond my 
reach. 

At three o'clock we departed from this pleasant, handsome and 
agreeable town. On the right, about ten miles distant, Ely 
Minster or Cathedral appeared in view. At twelve miles from 
last stage is Newmarket, an indifferent inn, however frequented by 
dukes and lords. We passed through the race grounds ; — the 
races were instituted to keep and preserve a race of good horses in 
honor of the nation ; but as the institution is debased, it is not the 
best horse that wins the race, but that which is destined for it by 
combination ; indeed, some descend so low as to circumvent one 
another. The diversion becoming a public nuisance by spreading 
itself, the legislature took cognizance of it, and by the 13th George 
II. a law was passed in relation to it. Departed for Cambridge 
over a plain champaign uninclosed country, which all this quarter 
of the country seems to consist of; at this place we arrived at 
seven o'clock, at the White Bear inn, where we were indifferently 
treated at our first alighting, through the driver's foolish neglect or 
mistake in not denoting that dignity and importance each gentle- 
man should assume on the road in order to be respectfully treated ; 
however, he seemed afterwards to be sensible of his own false 
judgment, and partly made amends. 

Cambridge, April 20. At ten o'clock, taking a servant of 
the inn along with us, we walked out in order to have a sight of 
the inside of King's College chapel, that, by delay at Trinity 
College, we lost. This latter is by far the most magnificent in the 
University ; has two spacious quadrangles, the front and one of the 
squares are of Portland freestone, having a beautiful reservoir of 
water in the midst ; the chambers occupy two sides, the hall and 
* * * * room another side, and the fourth by the chapel, which 
contained nothing remarkable but a full length statue of Sir Isaac 



112 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1777. 

Newton in the porch. The other square contains chambers on all 
sides except the north or west, and is wholly improved by the 
college library, a noble room of two hundred feet in length by 
about seventy wide, filled with forty thousand volumes ; the alcoves 
having on top the busts of the most famous ancient philosophers on 
one side, and the most famous of the modern English authors, etc. 
on the other. Here we were shown a perfect Egyptian mummy, 
the flesh like a smoked tongue. In the same apartment was a 
curious inscription in Greek capitals, without distinction of senten- 
ces or words, on a marble about eighteen inches square, having a 
plain pediment on the top ; it is called Marmor Sandavicensis, 
being presented by Lord Sandwich. There are also to be seen 
some mutilated antique pillars and capitals with inscriptions in 
Greek characters, placed on the grand staircases leading to the 
library, given by Mr. Wortley Montague or his sister Lady Bute, 
since her death, but which I forget ; and among them his bust in 
marble. 

From hence we departed through the college walks on the 
banks of the river Cam, running on the back of King's College, 
Trinity College, Caius, Trinity Hall, Clare Hall and St. John's 
College ; over the river are three handsome stone bridges for foot 
walking, and between them a wooden bridge called the bridle- 
way, for horses and carriages ; the banks of the river within the 
college grounds are faced with stone, the lawn carried down to its 
very edge, with many slips for the advantage of the company who 
shall please to divert themselves in boats on the water, flowing in 
a very gentle stream about two rods wide. The pleasure grounds 
are laid out in most agreeable gravel-walks kept in the nicest 
order, shaded with lofty trees ; they are extensive, all on a level, 
and agreeable. Leaving these delightful walks we proceeded to 
the chapel ; it being shut, we turned our walk to take a view of 
the other buildings. A Mr. Pearce, a fellow of St. John's College, 
whom I met in the walks, invited us to his chamber, where we 
abode a few minutes to look in a book for an answer to a question 
I put them concerning the age of an ancient manuscript in the 
University library, and for the key of the library, to which he con- 
ducted us. It is not a handsome room, nor contains a large col- 
lection of books; it v^as scarcely larger than our old Harvard 



1777.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 113 

College library, and like it consisting of old books chiefly. Mr. 
Prior was of this college, and left it a noble folio volume of all his 
works, bound in morocco, finely gilt. Here we also saw a most 
elegant folio edition of Dr. Samuel Clarke's Julius Caesar's Com- 
mentaries. 

Having returned to our inn, we dined, and soon departed in a 
post-chaise through a very level road to our designed stage, Bark- 
way, distant sixteen miles, where we lodged and breakfasted. 
This very indifferent collection of old fashioned buildings we soon 
left, and entered on the fine improvements of Herts. The agreeable 
unevenness of the earth, the verdure of the fields and corn grounds, 
and excellent improvements for which this county is noted, rendered 
our travelHng for many miles delightfully pleasant. At Ware 
alighted in two hours from our departure from the last stage, stop- 
ping at the Saracen's Head, to gratify my companions, whose curi- 
osity urged them to take a view of the great bed, which I before 
described, and made, as our informant told us, for the use of King 
Edward IV. in 1463. From hence we took the course to Hart- 
ford, lying three miles out of our direct road to London, and in 
two hours from hence were set down at Judge Sewall's door, after 
a ramble of one hundred and eighty miles ; and so good-by, Essex, 
Suffolk, and Cambridgeshire. 

Passed the afternoon and evening at Judge Sewall's. 

April 25. "With Mr. Savage attended Longford's sales under 
Covent Garden piazza — viewed and examined his medals and 
coins; Roman, Grecian, Egyptian, Saxon, and English. Saw a 
brass farthing of the time of the Commonwealth that sold for three 
pounds four. 

April 29. Attended the exhibition in Piccadilly of Society of 
Artists of Great Britain ; was really surprised at the meanness of 
the portraits ; nothing appeared to my eye well executed but some 
fruit-pieces and a few miniatures in crayons and water colors. 
From hence Mr. Silsbee and myself adjourned to Mr. Joseph 
Green's ; we drank tea and passed a pleasant hour. Stopped by 
the way at Ely Palace, so called, on Holborn hill, now sold and 
pulling down to build two rows of houses. There are yet standing 
the chapel and hall in the old Gothic taste. 

15 



114 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [17771 



TO REV. ISAAC SMITH, SIDMOUTH, DEVON. 

Brompton-Row, April 30, 1777. 
Dear Sir: 

Your favor of the 25th I received last night, and am obliged to 
you for the intelligence it contains ; all of which respecting our 
own country was new to me, having not heard a syllable of it 
before ; the daily news inserted in the public papers proves for the 
most part to be manufactured here, and what is not, in event turns 
out to be premature and void of truth. Nothing can be depended 
on but what comes to us prepared by court cookery in the Gazette, 
nor do I think administration to blame for withholding part, the 
whole truth not being fit to be divulged in these captious, licentious 
times. I have wholly laid aside all regard to what is said to be 
brought by expresses from America, but what comes immediately 
from General or Lord Howe, or is contained in the American news- 
papers, of which we have now and then a sight in the New Eng- 
land Coffee-house. Nothing very important has of late come from 
that quarter, except the death of General Washington and the 
taking of Ticonderoga, both of these yet being matters of doubt 
and dispute, as people wish, fear, or hope. Since my last I have 
rambled through Essex, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire and Hertford for 
five days, in company with Judge Sewall and Mr. Abel Willard, 
and am now about departing, say next Monday, for Oxford, and 
from thence quo fata trahant ; designing never to make London 
or its environs my future abode ; — the inhabitants, however, I hold 
in much higher estimation than those of almost every other place. 

God bless your reverence, and succeed your pious endeavors to 
reform your flock, and I hope for and depend on your prayers, 
and remain. 

Very truly your friend, 

S. CURWEN. 

Brompton-Row^ Kensington, May 1, 1777. Dined at Gilbert 
Harrison's with my friend John Timmins, the two Debloises,* 
Benjamin Faneuil, and two ladies. 

* Late of Salem. 



1777.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 115 

May 3. Dined at Judge Sewall's ; from thence walked to 
London to engage a seat in the diligence to Oxford, designing to 
take that city in my way to the country, where for some months 
I propose to abide, but in what quarter chance must determine. I 
go hence like Abraham of old ; may the same kind and almighty 
Protector be my guide and defence. 

May 5. Departed in the diligence, in which we found a late Ox- 
ford scholar, who proved a pleasant, chatty, well-bred companion ; 
the road for the first eight miles as far as Acton, clear, level and 
pleasant as a garden gravel-walk : from thence it assumed a differ" 
ent face, and from Uxbridge to Oxford, especially through Bucking- 
hamshire, generally a rich soil and well improved lands. The other 
towns lying in the road were Beaconsfield and High Wycombe ; in 
the latter lies Lord Shelburne's seat, pleasure grounds and park all 
in view ; a little beyond is Lord Despenser's, much more cultivated 
and in better order. On the right and on an eminence, stands an 
edifice styled " the Mausoleum," of a peculiar construction ; but the 
inclination of my fellow travellers permitted me not to take a 
nearer view than the transient sight as we passed the road. From 
hence through a parish called Stoken-Church, and on bad roads? 
we arrived at the Star inn, Oxford, not having stopped to refresh ; 
here we called for dinner and engaged lodgings. 

Oxford, May 6. After breakfast walked out to deliver Dr« 
Chandler's letter to a fellow of Queen's College, named Monkhouse, 
who received us respectfully enough, detained us in his room an 
hour, and from thence conducted us through the hall, chapel, libra- 
ry of his own college, and after settling the route went to the the- 
atre, Radcliffe library. Clarendon press, and the schools. After re- 
peated invitations to dine in their hall, we declined for the purpose 
of examining the Oxford Guide in our retirement. In the hall 
of Jesus College were admitted to a sight of the plate : among 
others is a bowl and ladle of silver double gilt, and holding ten 
gallons, the gift of Sir Watkins William Wynne ; here is also a 
book of the college statutes written on vellum, and kept in a glass 
case, having the characters as perfect and just as if struck on cop- 
perplate. From hence to our lodgings j soon after our companion 
Mr. Monkhouse came and conducted us through the Radcliffe In- 
firmary, open to all the nation, and filled with every conceivable 



116 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1777. 

accommodation and supply, and kept in the neatest order. From 
thence to the observatory, and from thence to the park, being a 
long circular level gravel walk round the improved fields, part of 
which is bordered by lofty elms ; its high situation affords a fine 
extended prospect of the country under high cultivation ; part of 
the city on the other side adds to the pleasure of the walk. 

The grounds belong to Merton College, but the walks are 
maintained at the University expense and common to it ; on our re- 
turn back we met two gownsmen both of our college, (Harvard,) 
one of whom was Dr. Nicholson mentioned in the superscription of 
our letter, with whom and a Mr. Hamilton, (a partner in the print- 
ing of the Oxford Bibles and Prayer Book, the sole liberty of which 
is confined to the two Universities and the king's press,) and a few 
gentlemen besides in the common room which all the colleges are 
furnished with. 7th. Breakfasted at Mr. Deblois's by invitation, and 
after returned to our lodgings, to which Mr. Monkhouse soon came 
and conducted us to the Divinity school, having a curious roof of 
stone, and in as bold a style as King's College Chapel, Cambridge ; 
from thence returned back into the convocation room ; and here 
we spent some time in looking into the statute book and libro nigro ; 
in the anteroom I saw the vice chancellor in his robes and the two 
proctors, waiting for the completing a convocation, (consisting of 
twelve at least.) We were in hopes to see a baccalaureate degree 
given to one of the students of Queen's College, but the difficulty 
of making a convocation delayed the ceremony too long for our 
leisure; by this delay was deprived of a sight I should have been 
greatly pleased with. Hence we ascended to the picture gallery, 
and from thence to the Bodleian library, which did not come up 
to my idea ; 'tis an old room, its form an H ; there are many re- 
cesses surrounded with lattice work in which the students retire 
to read, transcribe, etc.; saw but few employed in that business. 
From hence we passed over to the Ashmolean museum -, here we 
were entertained but indifferently. In the staircase are a dead 
Christ of Carrachi, and the Tradescant family, by what hands I 
know not ; in the room a small miniature of St. Cuthbert in a gold 
gorget, said to have been worn by Alfred the Great ; some very 
nice frivolous carvings in peach and cherry stones ; the hat Brad- 
shaw is said to have had on when he sat in judgment and condemn- 



1777.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 117 

ed king Charles ; the skull of Cromwell, said to be known by a 
small excrescence on the bone just above the eye, etc. 

Retreated to the inn, dined, and being attended by G. Deblois's 
father, I walked to Christ Church College, the most noble of any 
in the University ; entered the picture rooms, crowded by paintings 
of the most celebrated masters, being the gift of the late General 
Guise, for the reception of which these rooms were fitted. Above 
is the library of very fine bound books, placed in a room of about 
two hundred feet long, sixty wide, and twenty-five high ; the ceil- 
ing finely stuccoed as well as the walls in each kind of relief, in 
oval and other figured compartments. The books are in cases of 
oak, handsomely carved, and many seats in the same style. The 
hall into which I entered whilst some of the students were at din- 
ner, is a noble room of the length apparently of the library, and 
wider ; the ceiling is of oak, supported from above, and in the 
centre of each square compartment into which it is laid, is a gilt 
rose J the walls in a line on each side filled with portraits, on the 
ends with full lengths. I remember none of them but Lord Mans- 
field's, over the door in his judicial robes. Here I was accosted 
by a well bred sensible young student, with whom I held conversa- 
tion. Leaving him I departed, passing through the walk belong- 
ing to this college, of a mile in length, bordered on each side for 
part of the way by lofty trees, rendering it most delightful. Our 
next delay was at Corpus Christi, into the chapel of which I just 
peeped, and from thence into Oriel ; both of these are small foun- 
dations. Arriving at the inn, dismissed my attendant, and soon 
after being called upon according to promise by Mr. Monkhouse, 
with whom I went to the schools. In two apartments the Arun- 
delian marbles (and collection of statues presented to the Univer- 
sity by the Countess of Pembroke) are kept ; the statues are 
larger and smaller than the life. 

From hence we adjourned to Allsouls College ; the house for 
the reception of the books was built by Col. Cod ring ton, formerly 
a member of this house, whose statue in white marble stands in the 
centre of the room, a noble one indeed ; — the ceiling and walls 
elegantly stuccoed, the books, very numerous, stand in beautifiil 
cases ; a fund producing two thousand pounds a year is allotted 
for the increasing of it ; by this provision it will in time become 



118 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1777. 

the largest and best in the University. From thence we adjourned 
to the chapel, a beautiful room ; over the altar stands a masterly 
performance of a Mr. Minkes, the Spanish king's painter, of Christ 
making himself known to Mary Magdalene in the garden, just at 
the point of time when she having said to him, " If thou be the 
srardener, and have borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid 
him ;" he replied, " Mary," and she turning about discovered it 
was the Lord ; this filling her with surprise, admiration, love, a 
mixture of all these various passions is finely expressed in her 
countenance ; and in his, self-composure, dignity, meekness. Over 
this, in a semi-circular compartment, are many full lengths, being 
the assumption of the founder Henry Chichely j he is dressed in 
rich robes, his eyes raised upwards, attended by angels. 

From this pleasing spot we proceeded to Christ Church Col- 
lege, in Peckwater-square ; meeting Sir Francis Bernard* with a 
son now educating here, was introduced to Doctor Leigh of Baliol 
College, who was elected in 1727, and is now a sprightly and 
active little old gentleman of eighty-six. We reached the church, 
said to be almost the only remains of a public building in the 
Norman style, supposed to have been standing eight or nine hun- 
dred years. It w^as anciently an Abbey church, dedicated to St. 
Frideswide, w^hose tomb is yet standing ; here we were shown 
several pieces of richly embossed double gilt plate, some of which 
were dug from the ruins of Oshey Abbey, where it had been lying 
for ages. The old abbey, distant from hence about eight miles, has 
been removed to this spot. Passed this evening as the last, in the 
same common room, and with the same company, with the addition 
of one or two more, hearing many sarcastic speeches concerning 
our New England follies and absurdities ; but every country has its 
characteristic ones, and that comforts me under the but too just 
ridicule we are loaded with. 

May 8. Took our farewell of G. Deblois's father and family — 
walking out in order to take our la^t leave of Mr. Monkhouse, 
whom we met, and were conducted by him through New College 
and its pleasant grounds, and back to the inn ; making our ac- 
knowledgments, we took leave, and soon entering the post-chaise, 

* Governor cf Massachusetts from 1760 to 1769. 



1777.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 119 

departed for Woodstock, distant six miles, through dirty roads ; 
were set down at the Bear inn. We loitered through the town, 
and at three o'clock, the hour appointed for viewing Blenheim 
House, we proceeded to the park gate, an enormous portal, in the 
triumphal style, with an inscription cut in the list, importing by 
whom and when it was erected ; from this we have an oblique 
view of that enormous load of building called Blenheim House, 
the first sight of which reminded me of that sarcastic couplet on 
the architect : 

" Lie heavy on him, earth, for he 
Hath laid a cumbrous pile on thee." 

The near approach did not fail to add to the disgust I first re- 
ceived : — the huge piles that sustain the arcades, the almost un- 
spannible pillars, and the inordinate size and clumsiness of its 
outside appearance, were fully recompensed by the elegance and 
grandeur of the rooms, the beauty of the tapestry, and the capital 
paintings with which the apartments are filled. The saloon is a 
noble room ; the library possesses a grandeur and elegance inex- 
pressible. From this famed edifice we returned the same way by 
which we entered, took a post-chaise and rode across the country 
to Bicester, through fields and private grounds, passing gates, etc., 
the soil light and barren ; few fields of grain, but chiefly uninclosed 
heaths for sheep walks. This town has no manufactures, wood 
scarce and coals dear: it abounds in houses for the sale of spirituous 
liquors ; we met in our ramble not less than a score. Lodged at 
the King's Arms, the most magnificent edifice of the whole. 

Bicester, May 9. Departed early for Buckingham, and alight- 
ing at Lord Temple's Arms, we breakfasted, and soon after left for 
Stow Gardens, passing for a mile over a straight, level road through 
Lord George Germaine's grounds, adjoining to the gardens on the 
borders of which, and facing the road, stands a light, lofty trium- 
phal arch ; leaving this on our left, we proceeded to the inn, and 
from thence to the gate ; being admitted, we remained two hours 
in going through the gardens and house, the front of which is built 
in a more pleasing style by far than Blenheim, not, however, to be 
compared to it in extent and compass. These gardens are not to be 
matched for grandeur, variety and taste in England, perhaps the 



120 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1777. 

world. They are capable of amusing for a much longer time than 
I could allot, being viewed by me currente pede. — Having trav- 
ersed the pleasure grounds half through, we arrived at the house, 
the front of which has a very noble and airy appearance ; ascend- 
ing a lofty flight of steps, we saw an elderly person sitting on a 
settee in half mourning, by the front door under the portico sup- 
ported by lofty pillars of the Corinthian order; approaching nearer 
I espied a star on his right breast, by which I recognized Earl 
Temple. Pulling off my hat, I was going to retire, when he put 
his hand to his hat, and beckoned with the other to approach, 
which we did, and entered the great hall yet unfinished, the whole 
front having been lately taken down ; the outside is finished, but 
within is yet in hand ; many of the rooms are in disorder, though 
enough to manifest the elegance and grandeur of the owner's taste 
and riches. From hence we set forward, passing through my 
lord's grounds five miles, and Whittlebury Forest,belonging tothe 
estate of the Duke of Grafton, called Easton ; which, with the 
other grounds we passed, till our arrival at the turnpike road, were 
insufferably bad, besides being delayed by a multitude of gates, for 
which purpose we brought a young lad to open them. The ap- 
pearance of the earth in this stage was greatly altered for the bet- 
ter, being diversified with hills and dales under better cultivation, 
and the nature of the soil more fertile. The fences for many miles 
of rails, such as are frequent in our own country, intended to defend 
the young live hedges just set out, inclosures here just beginning to 
take place. At 4 o'clock ahghted at the Saracen's Head, Wor- 
cester ; here we abode no longer than to dine, and taking another 
post-chaise, departed for Daventry, passing through a village 
called Whadon, where we supped and lodged. 

Daventry, May 10. A. M. Took coach for Coventry, passing 
through a finely improved, fertile country, and in three hours 
alighted at an inn just without the city ; a regiment of horse 
called the Inniskilliners, were reviewing ; a body of stout, likely 
men, dressed in red turned up with buflf", and exceedingly well 
mounted. 

Coventry is an old built city, noted for the ribbon weaving busi- 
ness ; here we were delayed some time ; took fresh horses ; our » 
road lay over a new canal between Oxford and the last mentioned 



1777.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 121 

city, designed for the cheaper and more expeditious conveyance of 
coals that these parts abound in, by which the former will be sup- 
plied at less than half the present price. In our road lay a village, 
called Dunchurch ; a little beyond is a long terrace road raised 
above the level nearly three feet, and continued for more than 
three miles almost in a straight line, and bordered on each side bv 
evergreens and elms, planted by the lord of the royalty, through 
whose lands it runs, rendering it inexpressibly pleasing to the eye 
of the traveller. 

From Coventry to Birmingham we were delayed by scores of 
wagons bound from thence, laden with goods, coals, etc., and at 
four o'clock alighted at the Dolphin inn, Birmingham, in the street 
called the Bullring, where we intend to remain ten days, (after a 
circuit of a hundred and fifty miles,) if agreeable. 

Birmingham, May 13. Being called upon by Mr. G. Russell, 
we set off on foot for his house at Moseley Wake Green, having 
been invited the Sunday before to dine on this day ; our company 
consisted of his brother and lady and sister. 

May 17. Waited on Mr. Wilkinson at his house, but he was 
absent ; afterwards went with ray companion to the locks on the 
canal, and saw several boats go through, an amusing sight to him 
which he had never seen before. 

May 19. Having engaged horses the night before at eight 
o'clock, booted and spurred we mounted our Rosinantes, and de- 
parted for the Leasowes, late pleasure grounds of the famed Shen- 
stone, and Hagley, the estate of Lord Littleton ; the former distant 
six miles, the latter eleven, on the same road. Here we arrived 
at eleven o'clock, passing through a town called Hales Owen, of 
considerable extent, and by its appearance in the same way of 
business as Birmingham. Attended by the gardener in the absence 
of the park keeper, we walked over my lord's grounds, almost in 
the centre of which stands Hagley parish church, a small building 
in a shady recess ; passing this we ascended an eminence. On a 
plain surrounded on all sides but in front with lofty trees, stands a 
pillar with a statue of the late Prince of Wales, (father of his 
present majesty,) dedicated to his memory by the late Lord Little- 
ton, who was one of the prince's household and favorites. This 
spot commanded a sloping view of a pleasant lawn, bounded by 

16 



122 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1777. 

the mansion house, a large oblong edifice of two stories and an 
attic, with a low four-square tower on each angle, and a flat roof. 
The exterior of the house is plain and void of ornament ; over 
the lawns are planted clumps of trees by which the views are di- 
versified. From the heights in narrow channels run many small 
streams, one discharging itself into a pool filled with trout, etc ; 
over this is thrown a bridge with an alcove. The grounds contain 
in extent four hundred acres ; and trees are planted so artificially 
as to yield an appearance hardly to be distinguished from nature a 
little improved ; here are to be seen pillars, urns, rotundas, alcoves 
and field seats judiciously disposed : amongst them an urn dedi- 
cated to the memory of Alexander Pope, on which is an inscription 
savoring of flattery. 

Returning by the way we went, we alighted at the Golden 
Cross, Hales Owen, where we were furnished with a room by our- 
selves and dinner. On this day was held a fair in this town; seeing 
a large multitude collected I would fain have mixed with the people, 
but the curiosity of my companion not prompting him, and my 
fatigue by an execrable hard trotter rendering me indisposed to 
needless exercise, prevented our seeing the humors of this part of 
the country. In passing the road a few^ furlongs before, we arrived 
at this town ; about an inn were collected two companies of 
tradesmen with black rods tipped wuth brass. They assemble at 
certain times and are under certain rules ; have a public box, sup- 
plying a fund to be employed in maintaining the sick, blind, 
wounded and disabled, and finally burying members and their 
wives. Their regulations have a happy tendency to promote 
among the laboring handicraftsmen cleanliness, good manners, 
order and sociability. 

The road to Hagley in general is though level but tolerably 
good ; the views pleasing ; at two o'clock we arrived at the Lea- 
sowes, now in possession of a Squire Home. Attended by the 
gardener we entered through what is called the priory gate, a 
gateway and arch formed by old stumps and moss, communicating 
with a serpentine walk on a shady bank of a stream running through 
a craggy wild bottom to the pool now emptied of its waters. It is 
supplied also by another meandering stream, on the banks of which 
are judiciously placed statues, urns, and resting seats, from each of 



1777,] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 123 

which appear most agreeable and diverting objects, varied from 
each other in every remove, consisting of hills, dales, streams, 
houses, and clumps, rows, and forests of trees on lands in high culti- 
vation. The closing scene was a natural perspective view of a 
charming cascade running in various directions, the whole, almost, 
the eye could trace through bending oaks and osiers, from a spot 
whereon is placed an urn inscribed to Virgil and called his grotto 
or recess. Hence to the mossy bower or grotto, where after resting 
I reluctantly mounted my horse, and arrived at my new lodgings 
No. 20 Moor-street, at eight o'clock, much fatigued. 



124 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1777. 



CHAPTER VI. 

Birmingham, May 20, 1777. Breakfasted with Mr. G. Rus- 
:sell, and with him proceeded to a Mr. Onion's, in order to have a 
sight of his auriculas and polyanthuses, of which he has a great 
variety, and of the finest hues and stripes. Mr. Russell having 
invited company to meet us, we returned to his house to dinner, 
and passed the day agreeably. Arrived at our lodgings before nine 
o'clock. 

May 22. A fair begins here to day, proclaimed by the bailiffs, 
constables, wardens, etc., in procession, beginning at eleven o'clock. 
Streets crowded, many people coming in from the country ; a day 
of jollity rather than business, and the evening ends in riot, drunk- 
enness, etc. The low bailiff is the first officer in dignity, and by 
custom is chosen from the dissenters. He nominates the jury, who 
appoints the constables ; he also presides in the courts leet, gives a 
yearly feast, and has no further concern in town affairs. His service 
continues a year. The high constable inspects the markets, and is 
appointed for life by the lord lieutenant of the county. 

May 24. Walked to Soho Gardens ; the grounds naturally 
capable of improvements in a high degree ; they already consist of 
gravel walks in the serpentine form, shrubbery, flower borders, an 
occasional cascade running down a narrow pebbled canal, and 
emerging into a pond below, containing two islands. Took an 
afternoon ramble w^ith my companion to Ashton Park, now in pos- 
session of Lady Holt, about two miles distant ; the richness of the 
soil and high cultivation they are in, almost ravished my companion. 
It is almost surrounded with a lofty brick wall, and is agreeably 
diversified by rows of trees, clumps and single trees, with many 
large spots of clean lands. The house is of brick in the old Gothic 
style, very large, having battlements on its top and round turrets. 
The church standing on the lands and adjoining the avenues of 
the mansion house of the estate of Sir Charles Holt, is remarkable 



1777.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 125 

for the smallness of the building, and the loftiness of the tower 
and spire. Returned home not a little fatigued. 

May 26. Left Birmingham for Sheffield, our first intended 
stage being the city of Litchfield, sixteen miles ; roads level and 
sandy, the lands in sight barren and uninclosed. Just without the 
city, and in a field adjoining, we saw for the first time the English 
militia ; the men were as likely and well accoutred as the king's 
troops, and as clean and well dressed. Arrived at the George inn, 
where we bespoke dinner, and while it was preparing, walked 
forth to view the city and cathedral ; the former of about eight 
thousand inhabitants, houses mostly in the old style, few shops and 
little appearance of business. The cathedral is a venerable pile ; 
round the western part of the building stand in mutilated condition 
many statues, being defaced, as some of its inside ornaments were 
by the zealots of Cromwell's party in the unhappy times of Charles 
L There is nothing remarkable within except a curiously wrought 
screen of stone, separating the altar from the chapel of the Ten 
Virgins, to whom it was dedicated, and where prayers at six in the 
morning are daily said. The niches in which the Virgins stood 
have remained unfilled ever since the pious purgators of those 
times of confusion before mentioned ; and as another instance of 
their enthusiastic madness, they broke to pieces all the stained 
glass belonging to this church. Over the western door is an in- 
scription, stating that this church was erected in the 657th year of 
the Christian era, was endowed by Ofl^a in the Saxon times, and 
by Henry IL and Richard L since. In a flat tomb against the fourth 
wall lies a Dean Haywood, who, many years since, fantastically 
attempting to imitate our Saviour in fasting forty days, died in four- 
teen, a martyr to his folly ; two statues, one resembling him in his 
full bulk, and the other in his emaciated state, remain as monu- 
ments to perpetuate his impious folly. 

From this survey we returned to dinner. Arrived at Burton at 
four o'clock, over roads almost an entire level, as soft as a carpet, 
and in a straight direction as far as the eye could reach. At the 
distance of eight miles from our last stage we passed the Trent, 
near to where the great Staffordshire canal (joining the Trent and 
Severn) begins ; crossing and recrossing it, and travelling on its 
banks and within sight for many miles. This canal is carried over 



126 JOURNAL AND LETTERS, [1777. 

the small river Dove and many streams. Took our departure for 
Derby ; the roads as pleasing as last stage till near the town, when 
the face of the country became hilly and uneven, yielding a new 
picture to the eye. Stopped at the George-and-Dragon inn, 
Derby; took tea, and accompanied by my fellow traveller, rambled 
through the town, which appears to be of considerable extent, 
having four Episcopal churches. The streets are paved with small 
pebbles; some of them of a convenient width, the rest narrow, 
having a gutter in the middle, common to most of the paved towns. 
Here is a square, paved, serving as a parade for the military, par- 
ties of which are posted in every great town. One side is built on 
arches, forming a shelter for the inhabitants from inclement 
weather. There is great appearance of trade, and, indeed, the silk 
mills, flatting and rolhng mills, and lead works, employ many 
hands. Here are also many shops, which for size and arrange- 
ment resemble those of London. 

Derby, May 27. We visited the famous silk mills, and were 
told by the master workman that ninety-seven thousand movements 
were set to work by a single large water wheel. The house is 
two hundred feet long and thirty-six feet wide, and has five floors, 
each filled by machines. 

From thence made a visit to the porcelain manufactory ; — the 
principal ingredient is common flint stones reduced to an impalpa- 
ble powder after being broken in a water mill. All the images 
are cast in very small parts at first, joined together by hand, as the 
head, the hands, etc. ; the moulds are made of plaster of Paris, and 
not bigger than the outside shell of a large walnut, which they 
resemble, aud like them consist of four parts. The fancy pieces, 
as flowers, images, etc., are formed a clear liquor poured into the 
moulds ; in less than two minutes, by absorbing the liquor, leaves 
a solid figure, which after it is dried is painted, gilded, etc., and 
passes the fire four several times, and if gilt undergoes polishing to 
bring it to its lustre. 

From this cursory survey we returned to our inn, and departed 
for Lord Scarsdale's seat, called Kiddlestone, four miles distant. 
Arrived at the portal and lodge in the form of a triumphal arch 
built of stone ; through this we were admitted into the park, ob- 
servable for the greatest quantity of large white oaks and elms. 



1777.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 127 

About a mile from the entrance over a straight, clean carpet road, 
"we came to the lawn terminated by the house, making a noble ap- 
pearance ; passing a large handsome stone bridge thrown over a 
fine stream made by art. On the lawn, on every side of the house, 
are large single oaks, also many clumps and rows, which with the 
great herds of horned cattFe make a most picturesque view. The 
entrance to the house is by a double flight of steps under a grand 
portico, being formed of noble columns supporting a pediment, 
having in front my lord's arras, and crowned on the top with three 
female figures, erect, representing plenty, peace, and wisdom. 
The centre contains the great hall, and on the back front the sa- 
loon ; the ceihng of the former is supported by fourteen red veined 
alabaster fluted pillars of the Corinthian order on each side ; its 
height 40 feet, length 67, and width 42 ; the pannels of the doors 
light airy papier mache manufacture ; the designs are from Greek 
and Roman mythology ; the flooring the most beautiful clear oak, 
taken from my lord's forests, as the pillars are from his own 
quarry, and bear an excellent polish. The wings are connected 
by circular corridors, and in each wing twenty-one rooms on a floor 
elegantly finished and furnished. The state bed has very curiously 
carved posts, its furniture and hangings blue damask ; my lady's 
dressing plate the greatest in quantity of any I have seen except 
the queen's, and is silver embossed double gilt. My lady was at 
home, and remained to indulge us with a sight of every part of the 
house. The living of my lord and lady when in the country is 
quite in the family way. Their eldest daughter, going in a loose 
country dress to take a ramble over the lawn, on discovering us 
retreated back and disappeared. This house for situation, elegance 
and grandeur united, need not yield to any. 

From this pleasing spot we departed for Ashburn, the first 
town on the peak; 'tis a country town, has a market and an Epis- 
copal church, but is remarkable for nothing that I could learn ex- 
cept its being a station for those whose curiosity brings them 
rather to view Dovedale and Islam gardens, the residence of old 
Chaucer, where strangers are shown the very spot in which he 
wrote many of his pieces. 

May 28. Rising early we departed in a post-chaise for Cas- 
tleton, situated near the mouth of the Devil's Peak ; the road is 
over bare and dreary hills ; the whole country that is inclosed is by 



128 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1777. 

stone walls, being extremely barren of trees, shrubs, and bushes, 
many hundred acres together not having the appearance of either. 
The divisions of land much larger than to be met with elsewhere, 
and scarce a house to be seen, being situated, I presume, in bottoms 
laid from the road ; the sheep are small, and distinguished from all 
others by a kind of ruff or ridge of long hair round the neck ; from 
the plain we descended into the town, lying in the bottom, in a 
road encompassing half the ridge of mountains, extending to a great 
length from hence ; this road in many places is very steep, and at 
almost every step hazardous, and the accident of the horses stum- 
bling, the reins breaking, or wheels coming off, would throw one 
down a precipice, when nothing short of a miracle could preserve 
him from destruction. The tower of the church, of an ordinary 
height, when first discovered seemed to be many hundred feet be- 
neath us. Arrived at the George inn, and took the guide, who 
seasonably arrived with some gentlemen whom he had just at- 
tended through the cavern. 

Set off from the inn to visit this remarkable subterraneous 
frightful pit, etc., distance from hence about five hundred yards ; the 
entrance is between two lofty eminences, almost perpendicular, or 
rather overhanging, of a height eighty-seven yards ; its appearance 
awfully great and terrifying ; part is craggy and clothed in trees 
and shrubs. The passage into this natural cave is under an arch 
fourteen yards high and forty wide, rising somewhat higher; 
within the first cave resides a woman of thirty-seven years of age, 
who was born in a hut here, and has inhabited it ever since ; — 
besides her, here are dwelling two more families, and several of 
the town's people who daily resort here to labor in the twine spin- 
ning, in which business more than a score are daily employed. 
Light enough is admitted to do that and any common work ; from 
the mouth to the further end of post cavern is eighty yards, and 
from thence to the first water is seventy yards, making in all one 
hundred and fifty yards. Over this water, fourteen yards in length, 
I was conveyed in a small boat, for the greater part of the distance 
lying on my back ; the arch being too low to sit upright. The depth 
of the water is two and a half feet, which the guide, Robert Dakin, 
waded through, pushing the boat before him. My companion 
choosing me to explore the unknown regions, I first entered, and 
he took the second passage, and I w^aited for him before I pro- 



1777.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 129 

ceeded. At the further end of the first cave, a good woman with 
a dozen candles attended to furnish each of us with one, which, 
having lighted, each took in his hand and proceeded from the 
first water, one by one, in a narrow path to another cavern distant 
ninety yards, the width of which was seventy yards, and height 
forty ; from hence at a small distance is the second w^ater, over 
which I was carried first on our guide's back ten yards ; its depth 
is perhaps a foot. My companion next followed at the right of 
the attendants, and forded it on foot. Our next stage was in a 
cave called Roger Rains, from a continual dropping through the 
rocks .and earth. The entrance to the grand cavern is under an 
arch fifteen rods high ; this forms a kind of hanging gallery, on 
the top of which stood seven singers, each holding a lighted candle 
in his hand. They entertained us with " Fill, fill the glasses ;" 
the splendor of the lights reflected from the vaulted roof, and the 
grand echo, pleased us beyond expression. On our return we were 
saluted by this same company with " God save the king.^' From 
hence we went forward to the Devil's cellar ; of the origin of this 
name we could not be informed ; there is nothing in its appear- 
ance hideous, nor from whence we could conjecture its name. 
Here w^e descended fifty yards on a road of firm sand, and from 
hence the path leads to the cascade, which is heard at con- 
siderable distance ; the discharge is by a stream dividing itself into" 
two channels, crossing the cavern and continued under the hill, at 
the bottom of which, at its opposite foot, it forms a small river. 
From hence to a place called " the top," and thence to the 
four regular arches, as regular as if formed by design ; and from 
hence to Tom of Lincoln, (so called from its resemblance to the top 
of a bell and its enormous magnitude,) and from thence to the ex- 
tremity of the cavern, distant from its mouth seven hundred and 
fifty yards. The level at the further end of the cavern was taken 
by Doctor Solander and Mr. Banks, and is two hundred and fifty 
yards ; — the charming appearance of the external light on our ap- 
proach towards the first cave, on our return back, excited a most 
pleasing sensation. Over the cavern is an ancient fortification in 
the Roman manner. After discharging the customary dues for 
candles, singers, etc., through a crowd of beggars who always 
attend strangers at the mouth on their return, which we were cau- 

17 



130 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1777. 

tioned to neglect, passed on to our inn, where we dined, and soon 
departed for Sheffield, where we arrived about six o'clock, and 
alighted at the George inn. 

Shpffield, May 29. Presented an introductory letter from Mr. 
George Russell of Birmingham to his correspondent, a Mr. Broom- 
head, whose reception of us at first was cool, but his after de- 
meanor and hospitality much more than counterbalanced the 
former ; I rather imputed it to an honest bluntness and ignorance 
of forms. He is a wealthy cutler, whose principal business lay in 
the American line. Attended by him we walked round the town 
to several branches, as rolling mills, grinding cutlery, white lead 
mill, etc. After dinner strolled amongst the multitude to the race 
ground called " Crooke's Moor ;" the number supposed to be full 
twenty thousand. From a lofty stand opposite the ground I had a 
full view of the race ; four heats were run, the first by seven horses ; 
the plate, a silver gilt cup, worth seventy pounds, was gained 
by a horse called " Why not," who, on the two first heats was 
almost distanced. The humors of the race I had an opportunity 
of seeing In perfection ; the different passions wherewith they were 
agitated afforded me no small diversion. The horses were called 
by the names of their riders, who were differently clothed, as pink, 
orange, scarlet, striped, etc. etc. The plate procured by subscrip- 
tion of the town, was carried by the constable attended by the town 
officers in their habits, preceded by a flag. On the ground were 
erected many stands, and all filled ; the last heat was scarcely 
over till nine o'clock in the evening. 

May 30. Called on Mr. J. Broomhead, and with him walked 
through the town to the colliery, so called, being a road-way 
from the Duke of Norfolk's pits to the yard, in which the coal 
is taken up into carts and conveyed to town ; the descent easy, 
and by means of a spring, the carts, without horses, under the guid- 
ance of a man, being conveyed by a sort of self-motion for more 
than a mile. At the end of the way the carts are run on stages, 
through which, by tilting them, the contents are discharged. After 
a view of this curious contrivance, we retired homewards, but 
meeting Mr. Aspden of Philadelphiaj a gentleman with whom we 
dined at Mr. Smith's in Birmingham a few days before, agreed to 
join company, and immediately departed in a stage coach from 



1777.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 131 

Sheffield, and arrived at Black Barnsley through a delightful though 
uneven road ; distance fourteen miles. Here we took post-chaises, 
and in two hours alighted at Wakefield, a clothing town, wherein 
appear evident tokens of taste in building and of wealth ; the av- 
enues to it delightful, the roads like a carpet walk, on one side a 
raised terrace walk for foot passengers, flagged for more than two 
miles; the lands hereabouts excellent, and under the most improved 
cultivation. The Westgate-street has the noblest appearance of 
any I ever saw, out of London ; its pavements in the best order ; its 
length near half a mile, and width ten rods. Were it not for 
some old, low buildings, London could not boast a more magnifi- 
cent street. It has a very large Episcopal church, with a remark- 
ably lofty tower and spire. The principal character in the novel 
called " The Vicar of Wakefield" was taken from the late vicar of 
this church, named Johnson, whose peculiarly odd and singular hu- 
mor has exposed his memory to the ridicule of that satire. We 
soon after departed for Leeds in a post-chaise, through good roads 
and fertile lands : from Sheffield to Leeds the face of the country 
is more pleasing, the lands in better improvement and more peo- 
pled, than in more than twenty counties 1 have passed through in 
England ; alighted at the " Old King's Arms" at nine o'clock, 
where we supped and lodged. 

Leeds, May 31. Sent our names to S. Elam and waited break- 
fast ; he soon came, but having taken his, declined partaking with 
us. We walked forth under his guidance, and took dinner with 
him afterwards ; rambled to a village called Armley, to see a scrib- 
bling mill, by which more wool is discharged than ten hands can 
do in the same time. It is performed by a horse, but its construc- 
tion cannot be described, not being exposed to open view, it being 
a favor shown to Mr. Elam, on whose account we were favored 
with a sight of it. Too nice an inspection would have excited sus- 
picion, which w-e wished to avoid. The manufacturers of every 
kind through England are not pleased to admit strangers to a sight 
of the machines and process of their business. From thence we 
returned back on the sides of the canal, which for the first time is 
to be opened with ceremony next Wednesday ; no part of it has 
hitherto been used. 

June 2. This town is said to contain ten thousand people, 



132 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1777. 

many well-filled shops, and various trades ; its principal business in 
narrow and coarse woollen cloths, consigned to foreign orders, but 
little to London or inland trade ; many of its merchants are 
wealthy. It has a large cloth market of brick, of three ranges, 
each range having two walks, and the walks are called King-street, 
Queen-street, Cheapside, etc. Set off for Huddersfield, distant six- 
teen miles, and is the town to which the merchants of Leeds, Hali- 
fax and Wakefield resort to buy cloths from the clothiers abounding 
in this neighborhood. The town of Huddersfield is very old-built, 
and has a wretched appearance. The butchery was built by Sir 
John Ramsey, proprietor of the land, whose rent is seventy pounds. 
After dinner we entered a post-chaise for Halifax, where we arrived 
at six o'clock. 

This town is supposed to be larger than Leeds j its streets, if it 
can be said to have any, are excellently paved, and have a conve- 
nient flagged walk on each side raised ; lying uneven they are 
always clean ; but in general they are narrow and short, each end 
bounded by a triangular house ', many large and well-built ones 
in, but more just without the town. The situation of the town is 
on an uneven, low eminence, surrounded by lofty hills on all sides 
in the most improved condition, laid out in lots bounded by live 
hedges, rows of trees, and stone walls, almost as even as the walls 
of a house. The whole country for many miles within view 
abounds in manufactories and farm houses ; the people here are 
numerous and industrious, their houses very cleanly. Amongst 
other kinds of good conduct, we in our rambles saw fifteen chil- 
dren employed in bending wires and preparing them in the various 
branches of card making, and were told their earnings were from 
two and sixpence to five shillings a week ; which employment 
not only keeps their little minds from vice, but renders them early 
capable of providing for their own support, and takes a heavy bur- 
den from their poor parents. We entered a nap-raising mill ; the 
process is performed by laying a cloth under an instrument divided 
into little squares of the diameter of the nap designed to be raised, 
or rather larger, carried by water. This instrument is about eight 
feet long and two feet wide, and is jostled backwards and for- 
wards by means of a little gage filled with teeth suited to a cog- 
wheel, which receives its motion from another communicating 



1777.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 133 

with the great wheel. By Mr. Aspclen's desire, we accompanied 
him immediately on our arrival to a Mr. Rawson's seat, a little 
out of Halifax, called ^^ Stony-ride, ^^ meaning Stony-road, the road 
to it being stony, (the Yorkshire people often using an i for an a.) 
This was a friend to whom he had a letter ; neither Mr. Rawson 
nor his sons were at home ; but soon after our return to the inn 
one of his sons came, and would have engaged us to accompany 
him back, but it being late, we dechned it for this evening, which 
he passed and supped with us. 

Halifax, June 3. Rambled with my companions to the lofty 
surrounding hills, from whence we had an ample view of the 
town ; only one parish church, the mother of twelve of the neigh- 
boring ones ; sectaries of various kinds abound here. By the man- 
ufacturers living hereabouts there is building of stone, a large and 
commodious market house, containing a square of one hundred and 
ten yards by ninety ; its lower story is fronted by short square pil- 
lars, forming arcades, on the back part of which are rooms for 
each separate manufacturer, of twelve feet by eight, and before 
the rooms a covered walk of four feet wide ', the second story is 
supported by square pillars cut into rustic, with a walk before as 
below, but more open and spacious, the pillars not being so large. 
The floor of the third story is surrounded by Doric pillars support- 
ing the roof, containing the same accommodations as below ; the 
height of each story twelve feet. The town is all built of stone, 
very irregular, but its streets the best paved of any town in Eng- 
land, London not excepted, and from the unevenness of the ground 
always clean. By the hospitality of Mr. Rawson we were de- 
layed here for two days, whose importunity would not suffer us to 
depart till Thursday the fifth. We passed our time pleasantly 
enough in visiting among other things his copperas works ; the 
copperas made from that part of common pit coal called slate, 
charged with sulphur ; its process easy and short, being collected 
and thrown into a large heap, perhaps of two or three hundred 
tons ; — water poured on it, which, filtering through, passes by 
pipes into an underground cistern or large receiver, is boiled, and 
from thence carried into a smaller cistern like the distillers' ; there 
remaining until it cools and crystallizes. 

Thursday, June 5. Departed from Halifax in a post-chaise, 



134 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1777, 

taking leave of our late companion Aspden, who left us at the inn 
for Preston, on horseback. Pursuing the road we ascended a long 
hill of more than a mile, and soon arrived at a very lofty ridge of 
the most desolate and forlorn appearance, called Blackstone Edge, 
continuing for several miles. The road level, hard and straight, 
and on that score pleasant ; the land waste and of a russet hue, 
covered with furze; not a tree, shrub, bush or plant, hedge or wall 
to be seen. From hence we descended into low grounds, well in- 
habited and improved ; in one respect this part of England is more 
pleasing than the others; the grounds are covered with houses, 
each manufacturer having a small farm or parcel of land besides 
his trade to depend on, there being more freeholders or owners of 
small farms and plantations here than in any county of the king- 
dom. We arrived at Rochdale about two o'clock, engaged din- 
ner, and took a ramble. The church stands on a hill, to which 
the ascent is by a hundred stone steps. This town is remarkable 
for many wealthy merchants ; it has a large woollen market, the 
merchants from Halifax, etc., repairing hither weekly ; the neigh- 
borhood abounds in clothiers. From hence the road to Manches- 
ter, distant about thirteen miles, is level and sandy, the soil light, 
the general nature of the land in this county, where the people 
speak an uncouth, peculiar dialect, unintelligible to the ears of 
strangers. About six o'clock we alighted at the " Spread-eagle 
inn," and procured private lodgings at Mrs. Barlow's, next door to 
the inn. 

Manchester, June 6. Walked out to the Duke of Bridgewater's 
canal, and on its banks met Mr. Nelson, who for some time lodged 
at Mrs. Leavitt's in Salem, New England ; he is from Ireland, 
passing through the manufacturing towns to London. We stepped 
into St. John's church, a small but elegant edifice in Gothic style ; 
over the altar is a fine stained-glass window, executed at York ; 
three erect images of St. Peter, Christ, and St. James, the colors 
quite lively, which the meridian lustre of the sun's rays not a little 
assisted. In the vestry is another window by the same hand ; on 
this is stained the founder's name, a Squire Byrom. This church 
was finished in 1769 ; its tower is crowned with battlements and 
high pinnacles ; the body of the church having such also all 
around its roof. From hence we adjourned to the Castlefield, to 



1777,] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 135 

see the exercise of the militia, making as good appearance as the 
king's troops in disciphne and dress. This field is an eminence of 
oval form, and here are supposed to be the remains of an old Ro- 
man encampment, the outside wall and cement yet to be seen. 
From this place we adjourned to the " Royal Oak" ordinary. 

June 7. With Mr. Nelson set off for the canal, intending to 
take a passage to Worsley to visit the Duke of Bridgewater's coal 
mines. After some delay we entered the passage boat, drawn by 
a horse in the manner of the Trek-schuits in Holland. Arrived 
at Worsley in two hours, passing athwart the river Irvvell, over 
which the canal runs, being raised on arches not less than fifty feet 
in height above that stream. In many places the bottom of the 
canal is considerably higher than the level of the neighboring 
grounds. Sent compliments to Mr. Gilbert, the steward, asking 
the favor of seeing the duke's under-ground works, which was 
granted, and we stepped into the boat, passing into an arch- 
way partly of brick and partly cut through the stone, of about 
three and a half feet high ; we received at entering six lighted 
candles. This arch-way, called a funnel, runs into the body of the 
mountain almost in a direct line three thousand feet, its medium 
depth beneath the surface about eighty feet ; we were half an hour 
passing that distance. Here begins the first under-ground road to 
the pits, ascending into the wagon road, so called, about four feet 
above the water, being a highway for the wagons, containing 
about a ton weight of the form of a mill-hopper, running on wheels, 
to convey the coals to the barges or boats. Under the guidance of 
a miner, with each a lighted candle in his hand, we proceeded 
through an arched-way about five feet high, walking with our 
bodies at an angle of less than sixty degrees, through a road of 
three feet in width, a length of eight hundred yards, arrived at the 
coal mine, which appearing about five feet through the roof, was 
supported by many posts, the area being about twenty feet square 
and height scarce four. From this dismal abode, whicn ray com- 
panion, whose name was Chandler, would fain have dissuaded me 
from proceeding to visit, after remaining a few minutes, I hastened 
back to our boat. One may go six miles by water in various 
directions, the wagon ways to the pits lying below the level of the 
water ; it is said the distance from the mouth is six miles in the 



136 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1777. 

funnel. A hundred men are daily eruployed, and each turns out 
a ton a day; the miners' wages two shillings, and the laborers' 
about one shilling. Price of coal at the pit twopence per hundred 
weight ; at the key threepence halfpenny, and at the door four- 
pence halfpenny. The boat having left, we returned to town on 
foot, five miles through fields and vacant lands. 

The centre of this town of Manchester consists principally of 
old buildings; its streets narrow, irregularly built, with many capi- 
tal houses interspersed. By act of parliament old buildings are 
taken down to enlarge the streets. It has a few good ones; King- 
street is the best built, is long and sufficiently wide ; most of its 
houses noble. Great additions of buildings and streets are daily 
making, and of a larger size than at Birmingham, nor have all the 
new ones so dusky a face as in that town, and in that respect are 
fairer and better ; for extent of ground whereon it stands, nor num- 
ber of inhabitants, does the latter exceed or in my opinion come up 
to it. The disposition and manners of this people, as given by 
themselves, are inhospitable and boorish. I have seen nothing to 
contradict this assertion, though my slender acquaintance will not 
justify me in giving that character. In all the manufacturing 
towns there is a jealousy and suspicion of strangers ; an acquaint- 
ance with one manufacturer effectually debars one from connection 
with a second in the same business. It is with difficulty one is ad- 
mitted to see their w^orks, and in many cases it is impracticable, 
express prohibitions being given by the masters. The dissenters 
are some of the most wealthy merchants and manufacturers here, 
but mortally abhorred by the Jacobites. The dress of the people 
here savors not much of the London mode in general ; the people 
are remarkable for coarseness of feature, and the language is unin- 
telligible. 

Manchester, June 8. Attended public worship at a dissenters' 
meeting house, both services. Walked to the end of Danesgate, 
and drank tea at our companion Nelson's lodgings ; and were 
amused by the free and unrestrained chat of his landlady, named 
Hudson, a quaker in religion, and Jacobite in political principle. 
The number of the latter description since the English prince 
mounted the throne is somewhat lessened here, as I am told by our 
landlady, who is in the abdicated family's interest, which is here 



1777.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS, 137 

openly professed ; all of that party putting up large oak boughs 
over their doors on the 29th May to express joy at the glorious 
event of the restoration of the Stuart family to the English throne j 
many such I saw. The ladies, who, if they take a part, are ever 
violent, scruple not openly and without restraint to drink Prince 
Charles's health, and express their wishes for his restoration to his 
paternal kingdoms. I saw the house wherein the prince, as he is 
called, dwelt whilst here, (at the' time of his invasion ;) the 
gentleman and his family still remain in it, and steady to their prin- 
ciples, which, however, did not hurry them into lengths that ex- 
posed them to the resentment of government. His name is Dixon, 
and his house is in Market-street lane, on the left as one goes 
from the market ; and our host, a Mr. Bower, with whom we pass- 
ed a very social evening at his house in Leigh-street, told us Lord 
John Murray and his secretary lodged at his house at that time. 
One of those executed here in the last rebellion was a son of a 
woman who had borne twenty-nine children. 

June 9. Passed the day in rambling about town with our 
new-found companion. Nelson. 

JuneW. Having agreed to join Mr. Nelson in a post-chaise 
to York, in the neighborhood of which we propose to cease from 
our labors, and hoping the rewards of a cheap plentiful country to 
reside in for some time, for this purpose we went to engage a chaise 
at the old " White Swan Inn," where we saw three young country- 
men, a Capt. Gore, Mr. Joy and son, at the end of their ramble 
northward from London, designing to return to Bristol by way of 
Wolverhampton. My fellow traveller on this discovery, tired of 
his expensive ramble, immediately took fire and determined to 
abandon me, and accompany them on their intended route ; loth to 
part in this quarter and in the situation I was then in, for certain 
prudential reasons, agreed to his fantastic plan, though entirely 
contrary to my wish and views ; and having disengaged ourselves 
from Mr. Nelson, to his mortification, engaged a post-chaise to 
Macclesfield. On the 12th June we proceeded on through a road 
of seven miles paved with pebbles to Stockport, a considerable 
town, having some reputable buildings ; its streets are narrow and 
paved. From hence to Macclesfield lying in Cheshire about twelve 
miles, being our first stage from Manchester. At five miles from 

18 



138 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1777. 

this is the seat of Sir George Warren, surrounded by finely im- 
proved lands and pleasure grounds, lying on my left. A little 
beyond on the right is the seat of Charles Leigh, Esq., possessed 
of four thousand a year, and of a considerable tract adjoining to 
Manchester, which he has laid out in streets to be let on building 
leases.' At Macclesfield we alighted, breakfasted, etc., departed 
for Leek, a distance of thirteen miles ; the former town has a silk 
mill or mills, and a manufactory which appears not to have much 
business. The town in general is ill built, the houses, as in most 
manufacturing places, of most credit in its environs. From the 
George inn we departed not greatly pleased with the host's attend- 
ance, nor I with my companion's behavior here. 

Leek, at which I now am, has a manufactory of silk and rib- 
bons, and one for hair-buttons; the former chiefly for the great 
dealers at Coventry, though very largely for foreign orders and the 
London supply, as well as the inland towns. From hence to 
Sandon, called in this country language Sand, is a distance of 
eighteen miles, which we were four hours in passing. Here we 
alighted at " the Dog and Duck," supped and lodged ; the former 
as quietly served up, and as genteelly, as could be in London ; the 
town is small, houses scattering, and of an indifferent aspect. 

June 13. Departed without breakfast for Stafford, the coun- 
ty town ; the roads in general are sandy, but on our approaching 
the town, the lands assumed a better face. The main street through 
which we passed is paved, the houses well built, full shops, and an 
appearance of business and of wealth. On our right, at the dis- 
tance of a mile, stands on the summit of an insulated hill, cut, as 
should seem, by art into a cone about one third down, a stone edifice, 
like a lofty tower, which is the only remains of Stafford Castle, 
making an agreeable object to a traveller. From hence the lands 
and roads are greatly altered for the better ; fine pastures, excel- 
lent live hedge fences, and rows of trees in great abundance. Our 
next stage was a distance of ten miles, at a place called Penkridge ; 
here again we took another driver, carriage and horses, and 
through a most excellent turnpike road and a delightfully improved 
country, arrived at the old " Angel Inn," Wolverhampton, where 
we dined, and having despatched a messenger for my old friend 
Timmins, he soon arrived ; by his invitation accompanied him and 



1777.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 139 

our companion to see the great manufactory of Taylor and Jones, 
(who are also exporting merchants,) for japanning tin, paper snuff 
boxes, iron tools, etc. This town is large, has a capital manufacto- 
ry in the lock and hinge way, and most other branches of the iron 
business, and is supposed to contain twenty thousand inhabitants. 
Like all the old towns it is ill built, and like Birmingham has 
a dusky look. Once for all, its numbers 1 judge are overrated ; 
every town and borough is so. After repeated invitations to re- 
main we departed before six o'clock for Stourbridge, distant ten 
miles, to which we arrived at half past seven, being driven Jehu 
like through roads as level, hard and pleasant as a garden gravel 
walk ; the country yielding a pleasant view from good husbandry^ 
fruitful soil, lofty trees and live hedges. We were agreeably dis- 
appointed, for instead of a pitiful, mean town, as its avenues seemed 
to threaten, we found a well built, large, lively and rich town, 
having a noble, wide and convenient street a mile long, with cross 
streets well paved. It is famous for glass, nails, heavy iron work, 
as anvils, etc., and some cloth manufactories. After rambling for 
an hour over the town, we supped and retired to rest. 

Stourbridge, June 14. Set off at eight o'clock and arrived at 
the " Crown" inn, Bromesgrove, twelve miles, at ten ; a respectable 
town, but it contains no large manufactories ; the only one of any 
consideration is for linen cloth. The lands about here in an excellent 
state of husbandry and fertile ; farm-houses and gentlemen's seats 
more numerous in this and the following stage than on any road 
we had passed in this route, except the west riding of Yorkshire, 
to which it bears a comparison. Were set down at the Bell inn. 
Broad-street, W^orcester, at twelve o'clock ; a very handsome, 
well built city, having spacious, airy streets, a noble cathedral and 
elegant modern houses ; its shops large and well filled, the town 
lively and full of business ; its inhabitants have the character of 
being polite and genteel, and indeed they have more the air of Lon- 
doners than at any place I have seen. The Severn runs on one 
side of the city, by which conveyance is easy to Gloucester, the 
distance being twenty-eight miles, performed in seven hours in 
small vessels. Here is a manufacture of porcelain, said to be the 
best made in England. While rambling through the streets we 
fell by accident into the cathedral green, and meeting a boy with 



140 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1777. 

a prayer book in one hand and the church key in the other, he 
accosted us with," Gentlemen, are ye a mind to go into the church?" 
and on our answering in the affirmative, the doorkeeper admitted 
us. It has many old monuments, (as well as modern,) particularly 
that of King John, whose body by his desire was buried in the choir 
just before the high altar, over which spot is a flat statue of him. 
Here also lies in a little chapel the body of Prince Arthur, eldest 
son of Henry VII., and likewise an Oswald, a bishop of this 
see before the Norman conquest ; the only modern I thought worthy 
to remember, is the worthy Dr. Hough, about forty years since a 
bishop of this see. The chapter house, also used as a library, is of 
an oval form, and its walls to a considerable height covered with 
cases faced with glass, and very well filled with books. In this 
city is a magnificent town hall, having below many full length 
portraits. This being market day the streets were so thronged that 
our chaise could scarce make its way through to the inn. Having 
spent four hours in this beautiful and pleasant place, we departed 
for Tewksbury, a considerable town ; here the apple orchards 
began to appear of uncommon height and bigness. From the 
western quarter of Staffordshire to the very houses of Bristol, 
through the delightful counties of Worcester and Gloucester, the 
fields, pastures and enclosures have an uncommon richness and 
verdure ; fruit and forest trees in greater abundance and larger 
girth and greater height than are to be seen elsewhere in England. 
Tewksbury has no capital manufacture except for white cotton 
stockings, for which it is noted. It is remarkable, however, for a 
parish church one hundred and seven yards long, and more than 
twenty-five broad ; its roof supported by round shafted pillars seven 
yards in girth, contains several old monuments. The first I observed 
was Richard Nevil, the great Earl of Warwick, called the king- 
maker, raised on a lofty monument scarce as big as the life, in a 
kneeling posture with uplifted closed hands; in a chapel are 
decumbent his daughter and her husband George, Duke of Clarence; 
and in a flat grave just before the door of the choir, is the tomb of 
Henry, son of the unfortunate Henry VI. 

June 15. From the Sun inn, Tewksbury, we departad before 
breakfast, and through rough and dirty roads arrived at the " Bell" 
inn, Gloucester, at nine o'clock ; notwithstanding the fine plenti- 



1777.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 141 

ful harvests of corn, cider, and pasturage, for which this county is 
noted, for miles around the city the houses are small, dirty, and in 
ill repair, the avenues slovenly, fences and walls in a ruinous state, 
the barns generally of wood, all tottering to their fall ; the brido-es 
the meanest and in the worst condition anywhere to be passed. After 
breakfast and dressing, we all attended worship in the cathedral, 
being decently and respectfully provided with seats in the choir ; 
the service was chanted. The dean and sub-dean performed the 
communion service. From church I repaired to our inn, leaving 
my fellow travellers to pursue their ramble till dinner time. Dirty 
narrow streets, and mean, ill repaired houses, constitute too great a 
part of this city to render it an agreeable residence. After dinner, 
young Joy and I rambled into the cathedral ; the cloisters are reck- 
oned the finest in England ; after viewing theiji we retreated into 
the church, and meeting one of the vergers, were conducted by 
him to the old monuments. Thence back to the inn, when we 
took coach and left the city, part of our company being already 
gone. The next stage was at Newport, consisting only of four 
inns and a dissenting meeting house, distant from our last stage 
fifteen miles, and from Bristol eighteen ; the roads are dirty and 
rough, the slovenliness of the farmers' houses and the richness of 
soil, were as before j here we lodged. 

JYeioport, June 16. After breakfast departed alone, our fellow 
travellers being already gone, and at twelve o'clock alighted at 
the " White Lion" inn, Broad-street, Bristol ; dined and afterwards 
visited Radcliflfe church : drank tea at Mr. Waldo's. 

Bristol, June 17. Breakfasted at Mr. Waldo's; walked to 
Hot Wells, and Mr. Gouldney's grotto ; after dinner accompanied 
my fellow travellers to Taylor's glass works ; in our way through 
" Long-row," were attacked by the virulent tongue of a vixen, 
who saluted us by the names of " damned American rebels," etc. 
In our return from Hot Wells, we passed a person dressed in green, 
with a small round hat flapped before, very like an English coun- 
try gentleman, who is the supposed Count Falkenstein, under 
which character the Emperor of Germany travels incog. Remov- 
ed our trunks to a Mr. Sladen's in Queen's square. 



142 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [ 1777. 



CHAPTER VII. 

Bristol, June 18, 1777. This being the day in which Mr. 
Chester, the county member elect, is to make his triumphal entry 
into the city, it was ushered in by ringing of bells and discharging 
of cannon, the noise of which early disturbed my rest. On the 
towers of all the churches were displayed colors and jacks ; en- 
signs and pendants on most of the vessels at the quays. On Bran- 
don hill were placed twenty-two cannon, discharging several rounds 
in the day, answered by the vessels. After dinner I strolled through 
the streets that were lined with people, reaching from the extent 
of the city on the farther side quite through and up to the rising 
grounds on the Down, beyond Park-street, the windows on each 
side filled to behold the great man. My stand was on the open 
space on the hither side of the bridge over the Frome ; the pro- 
cession began at seven o'clock ; footmen two and two, then follow- 
ed others on horseback, two and two in the centre. Mr. Chester pre- 
ceded, and was followed by more than a thousand persons, of whom 
one hundred and fifty were mounted and clad in new blue coats 
and breeches, with buff waistcoats, the Duke of Beaufort's hunting 
garb. These were headed by the champion dressed in blue silk, 
armed cap-a-pie, and at all points, bearing in his hand a mace that 
he waved every hundred steps ; stopping his horse at the same 
time, on which arose three loud huzzas. The rear was brought 
up by nearly a hundred carriages ; the day was devoted to mirth 
and festivity, nor was the following night without its share. The 
Duke of Beaufort, w^hose man Mr. Chester was, privately left the 
procession just before its arrival in town, and took a stand in a 
friend's house with his duchess to see the parade through the 
town, and enjoy the triumph over his rival without observation. 

TO REV. ISAAC SMITH, SIDMOUTH, DEVON. 

Bristol, June 19, 1777. 
Dear Sir : 

After a long, expensive, and not very pleasing tour, I am at 



1777.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 143 

length set down, for some weeks' abode at least, in this city. My 
experience, dearly enough bought, teaches me that manufacturing 
towns are not proper places of residence for idle people, either on 
account of pleasure or profit ; — the expenses of living being as high 
almost as at St. James's in every such town, how far distant soever 
from the capital. The spirit of bargaining and taking advantage 
runs through every line of life there, but in the north it is cruelly 
predominant. I know not but I may ramble before cold weather 
again to the w^est, for Exeter with all its faults is paradise itself to 
Manchester or any town in the north I have seen. 

Having by accident met Mr. John Boylston in the American 
Coffee-house, who informs me he is going off to-morrow for Exeter, 
I would not fail to embrace so fair an opportunity to let you hear 
from me, though I had nothing but that simple article to acquaint 
you wnth. Nothing will yield me more satisfaction than to hear of 
your and my other friends' welfare in the west, I had the pleasure 
to see Counsellor White, now on a tour through North Wales, &c. ; 
be pleased to make my compliments to his family and my acquaint- 
ance in your neighborhood. God bless your reverence, and suc- 
ceed your pious endeavors to reform your flock. You have mine, 
and I hope for your prayers, and remain. 

Your assured friend, 

S. CURWEN. 

June 22. W^alked to the cathedral, entering just as service 
was about to be begun. Mr. Haynes, a canon, preached ; a likely 
figure, but a dull heavy writer and speaker : — the church is kept 
in nice order. One half of this building was demolished by Crom- 
well when he bombarded it, and forced Prince Rupert to retire, 
who for some time kept him out, but was at last forced to abandon 
it. From hence adjourned to the mayor's chapel, in which I saw 
several monuments erected A. D. 1268-9, it having been I pre- 
sume the chapel of a knight templar's house. Here we heard the 
conclusion of an excellent sermon by the chaplain, Mr. Ireland. 
In the afternoon, attended worship at St. Stephen's. Evening, at 
Mr. J. Waldo's, in Brunswick square. 

June 25. Passed the afternoon and evening at Mr. Barnes' at 



144 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [ 1777 

quadrille with Mr. Waldo and Mr. Oxnard ; also met S. Porter 
there, on his return from Wales. 

June 26. In the evening stopped in our rambles at Lady Hunt- 
ingdon's chapel, where heard a sensible preacher on the doctrine 
of love. 

June 27. Walked out with Mr. Sewall and Mr. Oxnard through 
Stapleton to the late Lord Bottetourt's seat and pleasure grounds, 
now the duchess dowager of Beaufort's ; the house is situated on 
the brow of a hill, standing on a lofty foundation of stone ; its front, 
as approached from Stapleton, has each angle covered with six 
square towers, and between an open piazza below; the whole 
house crowned with battlements. It is built of white stone, and 
possesses an extensive view of the pleasure grounds, and a finely 
improved country all before it. After tea took a second ramble to 
Bedminster church-yard. 

June 29. Attended worship at the mayor's chapel, met Mr. 
Boutineau, with whom we took a few rounds in the college green 
amidst genteel company, and received invitations to tea. In the 
afternoon, meeting Mr. Barnes and F. Waldo, we joined them going 
to St. Nicholas' church; a Dr. Buck preached an excellent sermon, 
and delivered it with great propriety and fervency. 

TO WILLIAM BROWNE, ESQ., LONDON. 

Queen's Square, Bristol, July 8, 1777. 

Dear Sir : 

After a long and expensive ramble to no good purpose, I am 
at length in this city, proposing to make it my abode for a month 
or longer; — to what place I shall retreat from hence I am unde- 
termined, though somewhere to the west, as that is a quarter of 
great plenty and of the least expense. The report of the cheap- 
ness of living in Yorkshire is a mere fable, especially in or near the 
neighborhood of the manufacturing towns, in the west riding, or 
even in Lancashire as far as Manchester, which last place nothing 
but interest or superior motives could confine me to. 

The distance I am from London, (and probably shall be for 
many months,) will deprive me of hearing or reading the current 
news, but few papers falling into my hands ; and coffee-houses, the 



1777.] JOURNAL AND. LETTERS. 145 

resort of newsmongers and political dabblers, I rarely enter : so if 
you will now and then employ a few of your leisure moments to 
let me hear from you, I shall esteem it a favor. 

I am, dear sir. very truly yours, 

S. CURWEN. 

July 9. Walked five miles out to see Dundry tower, the steeple 
so called of a church situated on a lofty ridge commanding an ex- 
tensive prospect over the Severn into Wales, far into the St. 
George's Channel, into Somerset, Gloucestershire, and far beyond. 
Strolling along the quay, met a Swansea coaster, and partly agreed 
to make a tour through the southern and western parts of Wales. 

July 11. Went to the theatre ; saw the West Indian and the 
Misers, the former entertaining ; Major O'Flaherty well taken off 
by Mr. Moody, the best imitation of an Irishman I ever saw ; — the 
latter an unnatural plot, and but illy performed to a very full 
house. 

July 17. Set off on horseback for Bath ; fine roads, sun ex- 
cessively hot and scorching, almost choked by the dust which arose 
in clouds by the carriages and horses we overtook in great num- 
bers. Alighted at the [Shakspeare inn. High-street ; visited the 
public places of resort ; rambled about the city, dined, and at four 
o'clock departed by the way of Keynsham for Bristol. 

July 18. Drank tea with Mr. Francis Waldo at his lodgings ; 
afterwards adjourned to the theatre, where I was agreeably enter- 
tained. 

July 23. This day news arrived of the capture of the Fox, 
man-of-war, of twenty-eight guns, by some American privateers. 
Unless more spirited measures take place, or others are employed 
to plan or execute, I know not whether this island itself will not 
be surrounded by ships from the western continent and their allies. 
Two ships, just sailed from Bristol, were taken in St. George's 
channel ; and several to and from Ireland, etc., within a month. 
The nation is in a lethargy, and for aught that appears is like to 
continue so ; treachery, venality, or inability, will, it is to be 
feared, destroy this devoted people. 

July 24. News via Liverpool ; Gen. Howe burnt Brunswick 
about 20th June, broke up his camp, going to abandon the Jerseys, 

19 



146 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1777, 

to strengthen his lines at Kingsbridge, apprehending an attack 
there; and with the remainder of his forces and the ships to go up 
the North river on a secret expedition. The Boston fleet of eigh- 
teen privateers sailed with orders to keep together for twenty-five 
days, and afterwards each to repair to their several destinations. The 
Newfoundland fishery disturbed, the ships on Grand Bank scattered ; 
some sunk, the whole almost dispersed and ruined. London and 
the trading parts, even those attached to the government, I am told, 
begin to grow very uneasy and talk loud. If it should continue, 
a change in administration must succeed. Alas ! to what a low 
ebb is this nation fallen, that lately gave law to the potent states 
of France and Spain, in a contest confessedly unequal on the side 
of its own subjects ; but such is the state of human affairs. Go- 
liath was humbled and slain by little David, and those provinces 
that lately sued to Great Britain for protection and aid, now boldly 
defy and enter the lists against that very power. 

July 26. Took passage to Swansea with Capt. Hawkins, and 
at eleven o'clock, with two pilot boats ahead, cast off from the 
quay. In four hours discharged our pilot boat in King Road, five 
miles from Bristol,- we soon grounded, and there remained all 
night. The return of the ebb served instead of a favorable wind, 
to carry us to our port of destination. Indeed, it was, as the 
sailors say, right in our teeth ; the strength however of the current 
is such as to overpower a light gale, in which case vessels coming 
in or going out drop anchor during the ebb or flood, when unfa- 
vorable. This night proved dark and misty ; just after midnight 
we dropped anchor; daylight discovered the master's judgment in 
selecting his ground to anchor on. We arrived without harm to a 
stony beach called the ferry place, below the quay about a quarter 
of a mile. 

Swansea, July 29. Attended a court-baron, instituted for de- 
termining pecuniary cases under forty shillings, and is equivalent to 
our justice's court in New England; it is, I presume, appendant to 
every manor, the lords of which have the nominating, if not the 
appointing of the officers to this trust. The manor in which this town 
lies is called Gower, and belongs to the Duke of Beaufort, who 
chooses its chief magistrate, called Portreve ; the present is Mr. 
Gabriel Powel, justice also in the former court, and whom I saw on 



1777.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 147 

the bench. This town is the first in Glamorganshire for commerce 
and manufactures, twelve hundred vessels being yearly employed; 
its staples are coals, copper-plates, and white iron. The ore for 
the former, and blocks for the latter, are brought hither in their 
own vessels from Cornwall, and when manufactured, transported 
to Bristol chiefly. The town consists of twenty-five hundred in- 
habitants, who occupy about three hundred and fifty houses, few 
elegant or large ; a market-house, erected at Cromwell's expense, 
the inhabitants being in his interest. Here are several Episcopal 
and Dissenting churches, a synagogue and Quaker meeting-house. 
Service is said and sermons preached in the Welsh tongue once in 
three weeks. A custom prevails here of raising the earth on the 
summit of the grave in the form and size of the coffin beneath, and 
sticking in herbs and flowers, and during the season of roses, of 
spreading the leaves thereon. The country inhabitants almost uni- 
versally use the Welsh as their mother tongue, scarcely understand- 
ing a word of the English, which they call Sasnic, meaning Saxon, 
to distinguish it from the true British, which was on the invasion 
narrowed to the small districts of Wales and Cornwall ; English in 
this principality is taught as the dead languages by the grammar. 
In a place called Gowcr the inhabitants speak no Welsh, but be- 
yond they talk in no other tongue; in the midland counties scarce 
any thing but Welsh is spoken or known. Pembrokeshire was 
settled some ages since by Yorkshire and west country folks, M'hose 
descendants retain their native tongue, and are ignorant of the 
country speech. In general the inhabitants affect to speak of Eng- 
land as a foreign country, and as we on the west of the Atlantic, 
saying from England, to England, etc. The Welsh appear a 
hardy race, short, clumsy, and strongly built. The extensive white 
iron or tin plate works, and copper also, which abound, I fancy is 
prejudicial to the products of the earth ; and the appearance of the 
land justifies the opinion. I am told the land is good, but I confess 
it has a dreary look ; the lofty hills are, however, enlivened, though 
bare of trees, (their natural vesture,) by the great number of small 
huts, so prettily and agreeably scattered over the sides of the hills, 
being painted white, with the fences or stone walls encompassing 
them, or forming the courts or yards. 

July 30. A stranger sent in his name, Calvert, desiring an in- 



148 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1777. 

troduction to me; he had married a niece of the late Mr. Gwynn, 
of Newburyport, Massachusetts, who was one of the co-heiresses, 
and he wished to inquire about his late uncle's affairs ; but I could 
give only an imperfect account ; when I last saw his uncle he had 
a wife and effects, supposed about two thousand pounds. I took 
breakfast with Mr. Calvert, and one of the company was the Dr. 
Collins to whom I had a letter from Mr. Barnes ; but he not 
choosing to make himself known, we took no notice of each other, 
though we were both apprised of our meeting together, which I 
thought on his part an impropriety. My companion's capricious 
resolution to return back, and the ill reception of my letter, were 
■considerations that prevailed with me to accompany him, and we 
immediately set about preparing for a departure ; and thus was my 
design of remaining some months in this principality frustrated by 
an injudicious connection which might have been foreseen and 
avoided. It is with no little reluctance I abandon my only inten- 
tion of coming to these parts, which was to possess myself of the 
knowledge of the peculiar manners, customs, and language of these 
genuine descendants of the old Celts, that had long been the object 
of my wishes, and I greatly regret my facility in giving it up. 
But an unseasonable, ill-placed compliance, or perhaps want of 
proper resolution to undertake a solitary residence in a district of 
an unknown people, of a strange language, might have co-operated 
to produce my determination. In passing the road I reckoned one 
hundred and thirty chimneys in the great copper works lying on 
the banks of the Swansea, a river just above the town. Dined and 
took leave, and bent my course to the ferry ; was soon wafted over 
the river Tawy in a boat guided by a rope, the rapidity of the 
tide rendering such an expedient necessary ; having landed, we 
jumped into a carriage standing on the shore ready to receive us. 

The next town is Neath, which consists of about one hundred 
and fifty houses, and is situated on the Bristol Channel, or about 
the embouchure of the Severn ; it is a place of some trade in the 
same way as the former, though not to so great an extent. 

On the farther side of the river are the remains of a magnificent 
monastery, but under what denomination its former occupants were, 
I did not learn, having only a passing view. Just beyond the 
town on the same side of the river, are the seat and grounds of Sir 



1777.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 149 

Herbert Mackworth, under excellent improvement. Standing in 
the court of the inn, I heard one tell another that the lad then 
passing by, was the male descendant of him whose name was 
Pendrell, by whom King Charles II. was concealed on the oak at 
Boscobel, (now standing,) after Cromwell's defeat of the Scotch 
army at Worcester. 

JYeath, July 31. Left the inn at eight o'clock, and alighted at 
the Bear inn, Cowbridge, twelve miles ; a long, straggling town, 
of better built houses, and to appearance larger than Neath, though, 
of less trade. Changed horses and started for Cardiff, where we 
alighted in two hours, distance twelve miles. It is a small but 
neat and clean town, the shire town of the county of Glamorgan ; 
streets well paved ; has one Episcopal church, houses modern, but 
none lofty or much decorated. The inhabitants here and farther 
on towards Monmouth, begin to anglicize and lose the Welsh lan- 
guage and manners, few or none speaking it in town, though the 
mountaineers all over the principality make it their mother tongue, 
and politiccdly, and I think prudently, continue it. The villages 
and towns that have the least connection with trade, retain their 
original tongue in greater use. North Wales, more particularly 
than South, has less mixture of foreigners. After an hour's rest, 
we set off in a post-chaise for the mountain country, to obtain a 
sight of a singular bridge over the river Taaffe, consisting of only 
one arch, spreading one hundred and forty-two feet, in height thir- 
ty-four above the water. This surprising undertaking was planned, 
and after two disappointments, executed by a mason named Tho- 
mas Edwards, still living : — it is said to be the greatest work of the 
kind in the world, exceeding the Rialto at Venice. Visitors say 
it would do honor to Roman magnificence in the most flourishing 
times of the empire. Asking a question of a passenger, he replied, 
" Dim Saesneg,'^ which was as much as if he had said, " / do not 
understand English.'' 

Cardiff, August 1. After breakfast walked through the town 
to the castle, remarkable for its being the prison of the unfortunate 
Robert, eldest son of the first William, and Duke of Normandy, 
who was not only deprived of his right to that dukedom, and the 
kingdom of England, the government of which last was his by 
right of primogeniture ; but being made a prisoner by his younger 



150 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1777. 

brother Henry, he languished here twenty-six years, till death 
kindly released him, at once, from captivity and suffering. This 
castle is almost entire, and seems less ruined than any of the an- 
cient ones not in possession of the crown. The dungeon where 
the prince was kept is shown ; it lies under the outward tower, the 
descent by six steps, secured by two doors, one within another ; 
the apartment about eighteen feet high and the same in diameter ; 
of an octagon form, having an arched roof, admitting no light but 
.through a wicket just under the covering, jutting out from the body 
of the tower. The extent of the castle within the walls is about 
twelve acres. 

From hence repaired to the inn, and took carriage for Newport. 
After my departure learned that a daughter of the late Parsoil 
Pigot of Marblehead, was an inhabitant of this place. Arrived at 
Newport at twelve, and remained an hour, rambling through the 
town, which, like Cowbridge, is long and straggling, and the 
houses of a mean appearance. On the bank of the river Uske, 
near the foot of the bridge on the town side, are the remains of an 
old castle in ruins, reduced by Cromwell to its present state, as, I 
am told, were all the castles in this country, where they abounded, 
scarce a town being without one ; passed by several in sight of 
the road, and all in a like decaying condition. At the inn we 
dined, and loitered till five o'clock, waiting for the flow of the tide, 
and then with a fair but faint breeze, entered the boat and loosed 
from the Welsh shore. In forty minutes arrived at the Gloucester 
side, and waited no longer than while the horses were putting to ; 
and taking our seats, were conveyed across a pleasant, extensive 
country, filled with herds of black cattle and large flocks of sheep, 
bordered by a circular range of finely improved hills. In an hour 
arrived at the city end of Durdham Down, and^^soon alighted at our 
late lodgings in Queen's square, having finished a tour of two hun- 
dred miles in seven days. From henceforth determined to consult 
the genius, turn, and temper of my future companions ; my late 
fellow traveller's want of curiosity, etc. etc., renders him a very 
unfit companion, and frustrates every purpose of rambling. 

Bristol, August 3. Attended worship at St. Stephen's ; Dean 
Tucker preached. Returned home via Hot Wells. 



1777.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 151 

TO REV. ISAAC SMITH, SIDMOUTH, DEVON. 

Bristol, August 4, 1777. 
Dear Sir : 

The dark aspect of affairs in America on the side of govern- 
ment, renders it likely that England or some foreign country will, 
for many months to come, be the residence of the wretched Amer- 
ican fugitives. Our head-quarter folks have, I learn, lowered 
their topsails, and talk in a less positive strain ; fear and appre- 
hensions seem to have succeeded assurance. 

Of late I made a short ramble into Wales, and over many emi- 
nences, to which the hills in Devon are not to be compared ; the 
middling and poor inhabitants are not unlike our Indians, though 
inferior in size ; their manners as coarse and language as uncouth, 
differing from the English as much as their customs, many of which 
are peculiar. The outside of all their houses and walls is kept 
white-washed, at a distance giving them a lively and pleasant 
look ; the inside is filthy enough. The women, like our Indian 
squaws, carry their young shang round them, some before and some 
behind their backs. Cardiff, the chief town of the county, is near 
the bank of the river Taaffe, and in a pleasant vale of fine improve- 
ments, surrounded by high mountains, cultivated to their summits. 
Within two miles, and in sight, is the town of Llandaff, having a 
cathedral of a respectable appearance : — the churches in this coun- 
try, however, make but an indifferent appearance, being of dimin- 
utive size. About twelve miles from this toward the mountains, 
my curiosity carried me to view a most astonishing piece of archi- 
tecture in a bridge, called bonf-y-pridd, consisting of one arch, in 
span one hundred and forty-two feet, and rising from the spring of 
the arch thirty-four ; planned and executed by a common mason, 
who is now employed at a similar work in Radnor. This natural 
architect is also to execute another bridge at Swansea, over the 
river Tawy, the middle arch of it to rise one hundred and eight 
feet above the surface of the water at full sea, and of a width suf- 
ficient for a large vessel to pass through. 

Yours, 

S. Cur WEN. 



152 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1777. 

August 7. Attended worship at the college ; Bishop Newton, 
well known in the learned world by his writings, confirmed about 
nine score persons, chiefly females, from fourteen to thirty years of 
age. 

August 10. Attended worship at Mayor's Chapel, Baron Ho- 
tham, the nisi prius judge, present, accompanied by the major, in 
their formalities. 

TO REV. ISAAC SMITH, DEVON. 

Bristol, August 1 5, 1777, 
Dear Sir : 

A late rumor from the south that had exhilarated our sinking 
spirits, is now momently abating of its credibility, though it was 
told in a way and with circumstances that induced a universal be- 
lief. The report I refer to you must undoubtedly have heard. My 
faith in a speedy return to our native country is, as it ever has 
been, faint; those, on the contrary, with whom it is my fate to 
bear company, have cherished, and still please themselves with the 
fond, delusive hope that the disturbances on the western continent 
will subside upon the least success of the British arms, and hourly 
expect to hear of Gen. Burgoyne's arrival at Albany ; from whence 
they date the end of troubles there. But supposing that to take 
place, I foresee a great deal to be done before the fierce spirits 
of the people in America will settle down into a submission to a 
power they dread, and have been taught to detest. Besides, I 
cannot help thinking France will interpose and prevent a future 
connection between Great Britain and the colonies ; perhaps, not 
thinking it prudent to declare whilst the recovery of them remains 
doubtful. This you may call a suggestion of fear, and it may be 
the effect of a sickly disturbed imagination ; I presume, however, 
I am not a singular instance. 

With real regard, yours, etc. 

S. CURWEN. 

August 19. By the ship Lady Gage, from New-York, July 
15th, advices that General Heister is returning to Europe; 
that the troops are withdrawn from the Jerseys ; that Lord 
Howe and General Howe are embarking, destination unknown; — 



1777.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 153 

discouraging news for government, and is a convincing proof I 
should think that an insurrection excited by an enthusiastic ardor 
for liberty, rightly or wrongly understood, and in such distant pro- 
vinces, is not to be easily quelled. A contemptuous idea of the 
weakness of the colonies, and their inability to withstand the pow- 
er of this opulent state, is the chief if not the only source of the 
present discouraging condition of their affairs in North America. 

August 20. Advices from New-York are that General Pres- 
cott was surprised and carried off at midnight from a detached 
house a little beyond his line, by a few daring sailors who landed 
on the island. This was done in revenge for General Prescott's 
setting a price on General Arnold's head, dead or alive, to be 
brought in. General Pigot succeeds the former in command. That 
Lord Howe and General Howe were soon to leave New-York with 
seventeen thousand troops, destination not known, supposed north- 
ward, to act in concert with General St. Leger, who is coming 
down through the Mohawk country. That General Burgoyne has 
taken Ticonderoga, and a confirmation of the capture of the " Fox'^ 
man-of-war by the Hancock and Boston privateers. 'Tis also 
stated that the Massachusetts people begin to be discontented, and 
accuse each other of folly in engaging in an opposition that seems 
to promise such bitter fruits. Should Great Britain be able to 
establish a line of communication between Canada and New-York, 
and thereby separate the northern colonies from the southern, wo 
to the promoters and abettors of these disputes, and good-by to Con- 
gressional authority. The Indians will naturally fall into the hea- 
viest scale, especially when enforced by such powerful motives as 
Great Britain can offer. Should that event take place, God pre- 
serve my poor country from the desolating judgments — from a mer- 
ciless savage war. 

August 26. Intending for a long walk, took my course for 
Rownham passage, proceeding over Leighdown through a Mrs. Gor- 
don's grounds, late Lady Trenchard, which she exchanged for a 
husband. This house sheltered King Charles IT. after his defeat 
and flight from Worcester ; he was in the kitchen when his pursu- 
ers entered, in the character of a scullion, and the cook maid struck 
him with a ladle, calling him a careless dog^ and ordering him to wind 
up the jack, which he obeyed, getting on a stool for the purpose. 

20 



154 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1777, 

The house is a large, noble, old-fashioned structure. In the court 
yard is a piece of water filled with carp. Dined at King's Weston, 
and returned to lodgings much fatigued. King's Weston is an 
estate belonging to Lord Clifford, family name Southwell. At the 
inn I heard that Lord and Lady Clifford had that morning set off 
for France, on account of the ill health of the latter, leaving a dead 
child in the house to be buried when convenient. 

August 28. The annual Gloucestershire feast this day ; the 
procession, headed by the Duke of Beaufort, walked from Concert 
Hall to the inn. 

Sept. 2. Had a passing view of the half yearly fair held in St. 
James's church-yard. Saw exposed in huts, sheds, etc., along the 
street called Horse-fair, cloths, linen, hose, and every article in the 
grocery and bauble way ; — besides the buyers, there were numer- 
ous flocks of such characters as compose our Cambridge Common 
gentry on commencement days, and for the like purposes, festivity 
and fuddling. 

Sept. 3. Evening at Judge Sewall's, who introduced me to 
Dean Tucker, a famous political divine and anti-colonist, who 
judges them a burden to Great Britain, and presses administration 
to cast them off. 

Sept. 6. Had an hour's conversation with a stranger on 
'change; a rare event, people in England being greatly indisposed 
to join with unknown persons. The Bristolians are, however, re- 
markable for early inquiries into the character of all strangers, from 
commercial motives, and soon fasten on all worth making a pro- 
perty of, if practicable ; all others, of how great estimation soever, 
are in general neglected. This city is remarkable for sharp deal- 
ings ; there runs a proverb, " one Jew is equal to two Genoese, one 
Bristolian to two Jews." 

Sept. 7. At the college, the cathedral so called, Dr. Stone- 
house preached ; he was a practitioner of medicine, and has now 
turned his attention to spiritual maladies. His discourse serious 
and sensible, and his delivery with becoming energy, very unlike 
the insipid coldness prevalent among the preferment-seeking, 
amusement-hunting, " macaroni parsons," who, to the shame and 
dishonor of this age and nation, constitute the bulk of those of the 
established clergy that possess valuable livings. 



1777.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 155 

In the afternoon, walked to a street adjoining King's square to 
attend John Wesley's preachment; he being seated on a decent 
scaffold, addressed about two thousand people, consisting of the 
middle and lower ranks. The preacher's language was plain and 
intelligible, without descending to vulgarisms. 

Sept. 14. In the afternoon I attended once more John Wesley, 
having the heavens for his canopy; he began with an extempore 
prayer, followed by a hymn of his own composing, and adapted to 
the subject of his discourse. He wears his own gray hair, or a wig 
so very like that my eye could not distinguish. He is not a grace- 
ful speaker, his voice being weak and harsh ; he is attended by 
great numbers of the middling and lower classes ; is said to have 
humanized the almost savage colliers of Kingswood, who, before 
his time, were almost as fierce and unmanageable as the wild beasts 
of the vrilderness. He wears an Oxford master's gown ; his atten- 
tion seemingly not directed to manner and behavior, — not rude, 
but negligent, dress cleanly, not neat. He is always visiting the 
numerous societies of his own forming in England, Scotland, Wales, 
and Ireland ; though near eighty years old, he reads without spec- 
tacles the smallest print. He rises at four, preaches every day at 
five, and once besides; an uncommon instance of physical ability. 

Sept. 26. It is reported that General Howe is gone to Boston, 
and if he makes a successful landing, and is powerful enough to 
penetrate into the country, wo betide ray poor native land. A few 
days will undeceive us with regard to the object of Gen. Howe's 
expedition. 

Se'pt. 29. Mr. Timmins and Judge Sewall visited me. Even- 
ing at Mr. Barnes's, where took tea with thirteen Americans. The 
Temple church is so denominated from its having belonged to the 
knights templars, which powerful and dangerous body of men was 
dissolved about A. D. 1270. 

TO REV. ISAAC SMITH, SIDMOUTH. 

Bristol, October 6, 1777. 
Dear Sir : 

It is my intention to pass a fortnight with you, and could wish, 
if convenient, to meet you at Exeter. I long expected the pleasure 
of seeing you here, but now despair of it, having seen Mr. John 



156 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1777. 

Waldo, who informs me you have laid aside all thoughts of a jour- 
ney northward. The number of our country folks here is eighteen, 
viz. : Mr. Boutineau and lady, Mr. Benjamin Faneuil and lady, 
Judge Sewall and lady, Mr. Barnes and lady and niece, Mr. Fen- 
ton and daughter and son, Mr. Fr. Waldo, Mr. Timmins, Colonel 
Hatch's two daughters at school, and myself. 

Gov. Hutchinson, in a letter to Judge Sewall, writes that the 
news respecting the defeat of the Americans at Saratoga is cor- 
roborated by other circumstances concurring to establish the credi- 
bility of the lieutenant's letter; the remainder of the story stands on 
its own bottom, or in other words is doubtful ; it is, however, be- 
lieved by some that two hundred of the royal army fell in the at- 
tack, and of the Americans fifteen hundred are killed, wounded, 
and prisoners, with artillery and stores. He also writes that he 
has it from high authority, that Lord George Germaine believes Lord 
Howe gone to "Chesapeake bay, but the King to the northward; 
my belief is that this is a stroke of court policy, to keep down 
discontent in the minds of people who begin to grow impatient. 

Your real friend, 

S. CURWEN. 



Oct. 4. Before the " Lexington " privateer was taken, she had 
burnt, sunk, and destroyed fifty-two British vessels, on the coast of 
Great Britain and Ireland, as appears by her log-book, as well as 
by papers and letters found on board. 

Oct. 21. Rose at six o'clock, and went a coursing with two 
grayhounds and a spaniel for hares. Started one, and left her in 
a turnip-field ; returned about two o'clock, not greatly fatigued, 
after a ramble of fifteen miles over hedge fences, ditches, etc. 

Oct. 28. Had a sight of the Pennsylvania test, which mani- 
fests a confidence in their ability to support their lately acquired 
authority. It is a triumph to a few ; misery to many, I fear. 

Oct. 31. Departed at four o'clock from Bristol, in the diligence, 
with two other passengers, brothers; the one a parson of cheerful 
humor, and of the learned tribe; the other, late from the East 
Indies with a few thousand pounds, which he was early retiring to 
enjoy whilst he had a relish for the pleasures of sense. Breakfasted 



1777.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 157 

at White Heart Cross, dined at Bridojewater, and at half past eight 
alighted at Exeter, eighty-two miles in sixteen hours. 

Exeter, JYovember 1. Departed on horseback, attended by a 
servant with my portmanteau, and in three hours alighted at my 
friend Isaac Smith's lodgings at Sidmouth. 

Sidmouth, A^ov. 7. Rode to Beer, a fishing town, containing 
perhaps a hundred houses, mud walls and thatched roofs j the in- 
habitants in looks and dress resembling Marblehead folks. Stop- 
ped on our return at a farm called Bald ash ; met here Mr. Cornish, 
dissenting minister of Collyton, who is a cordial advocate for 
America and its independence; he is for retiring to woods and 
caves to avoid religious persecution. 

JYov. 10. Started on horseback for Axminster, through Kil- 
mington ; from an eminence on the road is a delightful prospect of 
the vale through which the Axe flows in a serpentine direction, 
under fine improvement, bordered by hills of a moderate height ; 
pastures and fields to the summit, from which saw Seaton at the 
mouth of the river, supposed to have been a Roman port, no trace 
of which remains. In this road lies a stately old house, called Ashe, 
wherein John Churchill, the great Duke of Marlborough, was born ; 
a village of no account called Musbury, and at the extremity Ax- 
minster, where we dined at the Green Dragon, and were introduced 
to the carpet manufactory, named from the town; invented and 
still carried on by an ingenious and obliging person of the dissent- 
ing profession. Here is also wrought, besides his own, of a pecu- 
liar construction, Turkey carpet, so very like in figure, color, and 
thickness, as not to be distinguished from the genuine article. 
They are wrought in perpendicular looms, by females, whose fingers 
move with a velocity beyond the power of the eye to follow. The 
shute, consisting of as many colors as the shades of the figures, is 
placed aloft on a bar, through rings running thereon, each ring 
passing a distinct color through. There was making a beautiful 
one of thirty-six feet square, (amounting to ninety-six pounds,) for 
the Countess of Salisbury. The knowledge of this manufacture he 
obtained thus : an old ragged fellow, in military garb, called and 
said he had wrought all over Europe in the Turkey carpet way ; he 
was engaged immediately, and complete success has resulted, not 
only in this kind but also in the Wilton and Axminster. 



158 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1777. 

We passed a dirty road in the dark and alighted atThorncombe. 
The late vicar was father of Comnaodore Samuel Hood, who lately 
commanded a squadron at Boston. Supped and passed the night 
here, next morning left early ; at eleven o'clock arrived at Lyme 
Regis, lying in south channel in an exposed situation : it is a place 
of little trade, supplying the neighborhood with coals imported 
here from the north. It is also a watering place, being accommo- 
dated with a few bathing machines, a terrace facing the beach, and 
near adjoining for walking ; a long room for tea and cards, of a 
southern aspect, and a neat assembly room. About twelve hun- 
dred inhabitants, (chiefly dissenters,) and about two hundred houses. 
Here is now standing, the George inn, wherein the Duke of Mon- 
mouth first slept on his invasion. For the security of vessels coming 
in here, there is a circular pier of several hundred running feet, built 
by the ever famous Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham, and from 
him denominated the Cob. The next stage, Culliford, at Mr. John 
Carsluck's seat of Wishcombe, where we were kindly entertained 
and lodged. This place is called from its situation; "wish," in 
Devonshire dialect means weary, and " combe" vale, — which well 
describes it. 

JVby. 12. At meridian took leave and departed through the 
country to Slade, seat of Mr. Lee, one of Mr. Smith's parishioners; 
called and notified him of our intention to dine, and passed forward 
to Brunscombe, consisting of five clusters of small huts of mud 
walls and thatched roofs. This parish, formerly an estate of the 
Brunscombe family, was given to a monastery at Caen, in Nor- 
mandy, and remained appended to it till the downfall of popery in 
Eno-land. Dined and took tea with Mr. Lee, and resuming our 
saddles, took leave, and crossing Salcombe hills, alighted at our 
lodgings, after a circuitous ramble of forty-seven miles in four daysj 
the roads for the greater part more dirty, stony, and disagreeable 
than are generally to be passed in our own country. 

Sidmouth, JYov. 17. Took an airing over Peak hill, — evening 
in a large company at Mr. William Carsluck's; Coddington house 
his seat ; took tea and a generous and elegant supper. 

JYov. IS. Rode out, passing a farm called Thorn, from a thorn 
bush or tree standing on a road near by, said to be more than three 
hundred years old. 



1777.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 159 

JYov. 19. Rode to St. Mary, Ottcry, about eight miles out ; it 
is a parish, a hundred, and a manor ; the lords, Sir George Young 
and Sir John Duntze. It is situated in a vale, the river Otter run- 
ning through the midst, from which the town takes its name. The 
centre is modern, built of brick, covered with pantile, a fire some 
years ago having destroyed the old buildings, it has a market, an 
Episcopal church in the cathedral style of building ; by tradition 
erected in 1060, a few years before the Norman invasion ; it has a 
look of antiquity, and is marked with decay within and without. 

Jfov. 20. At ten o'clock departed from Ottery, and at one 
alighted in Exeter at my intended lodgings in Fore-street. 

Exeter, JYov. 22. Walked abroad, had a conversation with 
young Reed, just returned from Salem, having been carried in there 
in a prize ; from whom I learnt there was no business scarcely but 
privateering, which he represents as surprisingly successful. 

By the papers, I learn the king in his speech takes notice of 
" the obstinacy of his rebellious subjects in .America," and promises 
himself " all needful assistance from his faithful Commons.''^ It 
will be well if additional supplies, and an increase of foreign 
troops, do not prove a source of intolerable evil. Would to God an 
expedient could be devised to terminate this unnatural quarrel, 
consistent with the honor of both parties; but this I fear is a vain 
wish. The Dutch, from a sordid thirst of gain, the French, from 
their dread of the rising power of Great Britain united with the 
colonies, and Spain^ from an attachment to the court of Versailles, 
are too deeply concerned to permit a re-union. Lord Chatham, on 
motion for an address in the king's speech, says, " Without an im- 
mediate restoration of tranquillity, this nation is ruined and undone. 
What has been the conduct of ministers 1 Have they endeavored 
to conciliate the affection and obedience of their ancient brethren ? 
They have gone to Germany, sought the alliance of every pitiful, 
paltry prince, to cut the throats of their* loyal, brave, and injured 
brethren in America. They have entered into mercenary treaties 
with those human butchers for the purchase and sale of human 
blood. But, my lords, this is not all ; they have let the savages 
of America loose upon their innocent and unoffending brethren, 
upon the aged, weak, and defenceless ; on old men, women, and 
children ; upon babes at the breast, to be cut, mangled, sacrificed, 



160 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1777. 

burnt, roasted ; nay, to be eaten. These are the allies Great Bri- 
tain now has; carnage, desolation and destruction, wherever her 
arms are carried, is her new adopted mode of making war. Our 
ministers have made alliances at German shambles, and with the 
barbarians of America, with merciless torturers of their species. 
Whom they will next apply to, I cannot tell." Such is Lord 
Chatham's fire, such his oratory, such his indignation against minis- 
terial measures. 

Dec. 14. This day General Burgoyne's mortifying capitulation 
arrived in town. Nothing could be more disgraceful and humilia- 
ting, unless a submission to the victor's power without terms. The 
loss of the military chest estimated at seventy-five thousand pounds, 
the finest train of artillery ever sent out of this kingdom before ; 
all the boasted acquisitions of the year's campaign gone at a 
blow, and Canada on the point of joining the grand American 
alliance. 

In the House of Commons, on the 12th inst., after Lord Bar- 
rington's report of army estimates. Col. Barre rose and called on 
Lord George Germaine to inform the house whether the report of 
the surrender of General Burgoyne with his army and artillery was 
true or false ; which Lord George did in a short narrative, and said 
intelligence had been received of the capture by the way of Quebec, 
which struck the house with astonishment ; and after a short pause 
Col. Barre rose, and wuth an averted look, said : " Great God ! 
who can refrain from rage and indignation when the planner of so 
much misery relates with the utmost composure, the horrid tale of 
a British army destroyed 7 We all know the General's bravery 
and skill ; he did not surrender whilst there was a possibility of 
defence ; but while justice demands a just eulogium, what must we 
say of the man who reduced so gallant an officer to so sad an alter- 
native without the smallest advantage to his country ?" 

Dec. 18. From a correspondent at the west of the town, I 
learn that the language about the court is nowise lowered by the 
last news from America ; " delenda est Carthago.'^ The old poli- 
ticians, neither biassed by hatred to Americans, nor interested in the 
destruction of the colonies, shake their heads at this language. 

Dec. 25, Christmas. Service at cathedral. No shops opened 
entirely, nor business publicly or generally carried on : — though 



1777.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 161 

the day is otherwise negligently enough observed, nor indeed can 
more be expected, considering the low ebb of religion here. 

Soon after the surrender of Burgoyne was announced by 
Lord George Germaine in parliament, an adjournment took place 
till after the holidays, whereupon Sir George Young, Mr. Baring, 
the Exeter member, and Mr. Barre, hurried down, and it was sus- 
pected that this foreboded a new parliament, a new ministry, new 
measures, and that the most active opposition is coming into play ; 
a few days will undeceive the public, however. On confirmation 
of the American news, Manchester offered to raise a thousand men 
at their own expense, to be ready for service in America in two 
months, and was followed soon after by Liverpool. It is said there 
are to be proposals for raising two thousand men out of each 
parish through the kingdom ; that the American secretary will 
resign, and Lord Hillsborough succeed him. 

Dec. 31. The lenity shown to General Burgoyne and his army 
is allowed on all hands to do more honor to America, than the lau- 
rels, reaped by the Howes, can bring to this distracted country. God 
knows what is for the best, but I fear our perpetual banishment 
from America is written in the book of fate ; nothing but the 
hopes of once more revisiting my native soil, enjoying my old 
friends within my own little domain, has hitherto supported my 
drooping courage ; but that prop taken away leaves me in a con- 
dition too distressing to think of; however, amidst the increasing 
evils of old age I have this consolation, that, mortifying as my lot 
is, severe as my sufferings may be, their continuance cannot be 
lasting. 

Accompanied by Mr. Smith, drank tea with Mr. Towgood, and 
they passed the evening and supped with me ; and thus ends the 
old year. Mr. Pope observes : 

" With added years, if life bring nothing new, 
But like a sieve let every blessing through, 
Some joys still lost, as each vain year runs o'er, 
And all we gain some sad reflection more : 
Is that a birth-day ? 'tis, alas .' too clear, 
'Tis but the funeral of the former year." 



21 



162 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1778. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

TO DR. DAUBENY, LONDON. 

Exeter, Jan. 3, 1778. 
Dear Sir : 

By my friend Col. Browne's letter, received yesterday, I am in- 
formed of Col. Frye's arrival at Halifax, and of your quitting Salem 
and arrival in London. Pray inform me whether his and your de- 
parture from your settled abode arose from the requirements of the 
new established governments ; if there be any in our province of 
sufficient authority to restrain the lower classes from their insolence 
and outrageous behavior, who, when the bands of society are un- 
happily loosened and the laws are forced into silence, do not neg- 
lect to avail themselves of those times to run riot against peace, 
order and security, the most valuable blessings of social civil 
life ; — whether there be any civil government established in our 
province — what it is — who the administrators — who are our Salem 
magistrates — its condition with respect to order, trade, religion — 
the state of our society and the situation of our friends 1 I could 
fill a sheet with questions, but, loth to tax your good nature too 
heavily, forbear. With congratulations on your safe arrival in a 
land of plenty, and freedom from persecution, either on the score 
of religion or politics, 

I remain your friend, 

S. CURWEN. 

Jan. 6. Evening at Mr. N.'s, with Mrs. N. and Mrs. Tremlet, 
sisters, of excellent understanding, great reading and refined taste. 

Jan. 12. Bishop Ross installed arch-deacon in the chapter 
house, as on Saturday he was prebend, and on the following days 
this week is to be successively canon, treasurer, and bishop ; each 
ceremony being ushered, accompanied, or announced by tolling the 



1778.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 163 

great bell, and afterwards the chimes play. On the demise of a 
bishop, the king in effect chooses under the fallacious compliment 
of recommendation to the chapter, consisting of dean, prebends, 
canons, etc., with a conge (Telire, or liberty to choose for that pur- 
pose ; the choice falls of course on the person recommended, and 
is so understood. He is then presented, kisses the king's hand on 
his preferment, and is installed by proxy in the distant see. He is 
personally enthroned when his new lordship pleases ; how long it 
may be before we are to be favored with his personal presence, it 
is not said. 

TO REV. ISAAC SMITH, SIDMOUTH. 

Exeter, Jan. 17, 1778. 
Dear Sir : 

The account of General Burgoyne's surrender is confirmed, and 
what think you of the Congress now ? Of American independ- 
ence ? Of laying the colonies at the ministers' feet ? Of Lord 
S.'s boast of passing through the continent from one end to the 
other with five thousand British troops ; and with a handful of men 
keeping that extensive continent in subjection ? Of the invinci- 
bility of the said troops ? Of the raw, undisciplined, beggarly 
rabble of the northern colonies ? Of the humiliating surrender of 
a British general, five thousand troops, seven thousand small arms, 
and thirty-six pieces of brass artillery, to the aforesaid rabble 1 
What think you of the pompous proclamation of the said general ? 
Of the figure he is now making in the streets of Boston, compared 
to his late parading there, accompanied by his vainly fancied in- 
vincible cohorts, now, alas ! rendered as harmless and inoffensive 
animals as you and I ? Of the condition General Howe is now or 
soon may be in, should the combined army of Washington and 
Gates, numerous as it may be, perhaps exceeding his own in the 
proportion of two to one, elated with success, inflamed with an en- 
thusiastic ardor, invest Philadelphia, defended by an army almost 
worn out by incessant labor, having, as the papers say, the shovel 
and firelock always in their hands, and greatly weakened by losses ? 
What think you of the twenty thousand men voted in parhament a 
few days since, in addition to the army now in America ? Where 
are they to be raised ? Is not Russia on the verge of a war with 



164 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1778. 

the Turks ? Have not the two great potentates of Germany re- 
fused to suffer their country to be further drained of its inhabitants'? 
Ts not Denmark too feeble, thinly peopled, and jealous of its potent 
neighbors, to furnish men ? Have we any alliance with Sweden 1 
Is not Holland in the same predicament with the former, and does 
not its commercial system forbid lending us aid ? Is not Portugal 
too poor, dependent, and unable if disposed ? Is not Spain unwil- 
ling and unable, and too much inclined to follow French politics ? 
Nay, does not the impolicy of hiring troops from her, if willing and 
able, appear too glaring even in the most desperate case 1 And is 
not France too insidious and insincere, too much interested both in 
regard to politics and commerce, to apply to her for assistance ; 
nay, would it not be too dangerous, considering her former state and 
connections there ? Have not the Switzers too strong a sense^of 
liberty themselves to engage against a cause wherein civil liberty 
is pretended to be invaded ? 

Pray what resources, then, has Great Britain, without allies 
able or willing to afford the needed help ? Can her own country 
furnish the requisite numbers 1 Can the manufacturers spare, with- 
out essential injury to its commerce, a supply from thence ? Does 
she abound in laborers ? Are there not, rather, complaints that men 
of the lower classes are wanting ? Have not the recruiting parties 
found great difficulty in raising men ? And is it not well known 
that business goes on slowly and heavily at this day 1 Would not 
an act of parliament to press men for the American service, (and 
without it, it cannot be done,) raise disturbances and insurrections 
think you ? Would not raising new regiments from among the 
Catholics of Ireland disafFect the bulk of the nation ? In this sad 
dilemma, which way can administration turn to e'xtricate them- 
selves ? How can they escape out of this labyrinth wherein they are 
intricated 1 What measures can be adopted consistent with the 
honor and dignity of this late mighty empire — alas, how fallen ! — that 
gave law^ but a few years ago to two of the most powerful, politic, 
and wealthy states in Europe, and thereby peace to almost all the 
world ? Common sense and prudence, in the case of a private 
person, suggests, that when convinced his measures of conduct are 
inadequate and incompetent to answer his wishes and designs, to 
retrace his mistaken steps, pursue other measures, and undo what 



1778.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 165 

has been done wrong; for it most surely is less dishonorable to 
correct errors than pertinaciously continue in a track confessedly 
wrong and fatal. Does not the American secretary, Lord George 
Germaine, seem to be of this mind, when he announced General 
Burgoyne's surrender in the house, declaring, at the same time, the 
impracticability of carrying on this war any longer ? Has this an 
appearance of a pacific intention, or does it seem designed, as has 
been suggested, to lull the opposition? (which, however, I don't 
consider but as the effect of party misrepresentation ; for you know 
party views every thing in false lights.) Think you this an indi- 
vidual opinion, uncoramunicated to his brethren in administration, 
and unknown in the privy council, delivered without their privity, 
connivance or consent ? Is it probable he will long hold a post in 
which he must take so active a part as his duty requires, in promo- 
ting measures, in his judgment ineffectual, and which cannot long 
be supported 1 If a difference in the higher departments begins, 
and a derangement in administration should take place, where will 
it end ? I shall tremble for the consequences at this period, as it 
will weaken government w'hen most it stands in need of support 
from a general concurrence. Did not Lord North seem to yield to 
the idea of conciliatory measures ? The designs of a court are 
deep and hidden ; who, by searching, can find them out, till time, 
the great revealer of secret things, exposes to view the wisdom or 
folly, the policy or impolicy of cabinet councils ? The language of 
the court, the papers say, is, as it ever has been, " delenda est Car' 
thago ; if this be not slander, wo betide my poor country. I con- 
fess I feel too strongly the amor pafrice not to wish it may be 
slander ; its enemies will never, I hope, exult over its ruins ; but 
its inhabitants be timely brought to a just sense and sight of their 
real interest and security, which in my view consists only in a close 
connection with this country. 

Vigorous measures are talked of there ; but in parliament the 
language held by the ministers seems mild, leaning toward an 
adjustment of matters otherwise than by the ultima ratio regum; 
the out-door talk is just the reverse : unhappy the state of society 
and government that renders such conduct in any regard expedient. 
Should government seriously wish and intend to settle this quarrel 
amicably, what can be the first step ? The present situation of 



166 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1778. 

administration puts me in mind of a story relative to Sir Christopher 
Wren, who went yearly to visit King's College Chapel, Cambridge, 
remarkable for its roof; on being asked whether he could construct 
such another, replied, " Tell me where to place the first stone, and 
I will engage to execute it." Are not our state architects as much 
perplexed and embarrassed where to lay the first foundation stone 
whereon to erect a temple to peace and concord ? Could they ever 
devise a plan of accommodation dictated by wisdom itself short of 
American independence ? Would the United States condescend to 
enter into a treaty with this kingdom after so many proofs of their 
ability to defeat their designs and resist their most vigorous efforts, 
and from whom they have received so many supposed indignities, 
severities, and oppressions ? I quit my theme and lay down my 
pen to read the news just brought in ; but before I record it, let me 
premise that not a syllable of it finds credit with me ; it is as fol- 
lows: — " General Vaughan, who burnt Esopus and made such cruel 
havoc up Hudson river, is defeated by General Putnam ; he and his 
array prisoners ; that the former has got between General Clinton and 
New-York with a separate army ; that General Washington had 
forced General Howe's lines, destroyed and taken seven thousand 
men." Should this, or half of it be true, I warrant (without gift 
of prophecy) the game is up. I forgot to add, Arnold is not killed, 
only wounded in the leg, and with General Gieen gone forward 
to Quebec; the American works on the Delaware not yet forced, 
so that the two brothers Howe can as yet have communication 
together till that event takes place. General Howe's situation 
must be very disagreeable, not to say dangerous. I will add a few 
lines to fill the sheet. Newspapers are crowded with articles of 
the offers of towns and counties to enable his majesty's government 
to carry on the war against America, which by some means is now 
become to be considered as less a ministerial aflfair than some time 
ago ; should the proposed numbers, however, be taken out of the 
manufactories, I dare engage trade will sensibly feel it. Would to 
God, that moderate and just views of the real interests of both 
countries might possess the minds of those who direct the public 
measures here and there. That peace may again take place, and 
trade and agriculture and commerce be established on a lasting 
basis, is the most ardent wish of your friend, S. Curwen. 



1778.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 167 

Jan. 26. I am told the officers lately arrived from America, 
generally declare the conquest of it is a vain expectation, even 
with a very great additional force. Notwithstanding this, the 
ardor of the nation for subduing what is called the " American Re- 
hellion,'" seems to spread like a flame from north to south ; the new 
troops talked of as proposed to be raised immediately, are as 
follows : — Battalion of Highlanders under Lord M'Leod, 1000 ; 
Manchester volunteers, 1000 ; Duke of Argyle's Highlanders, 
2000; Duke of Athol's Highlanders, 1000; Colonel Gordon's do., 
1000 ; Duke of Hamilton's regiment of Arran, 1000 ; Colonel 
Dalrymple's loyal Lowlanders, 1000 ; midland Highlanders, 1000 ; 
Sutherland's and Mackay's Highlanders, 1000 ; Earl of Seaforth's 
Highlanders, 1000 ; Dutch brigades to be augmented, 5000 ; Irish 
Roman Catholics, 5000; ten English battalions, 10,000 :— 31,000. 

Lord Abington's motion to be considered in parliament, against 
the constitutionality of persons, corporations, towns, cities or coun- 
ties to raise men, and arm and equip them ; and if he defends his 
position, it will put a stop to the loyalty of Manchester, Liverpool, 
Norfolk county, and some Scotch lords, who have made offers of 
money and men for carrying on the American war. Lord Abing- 
ton's motion was for summoning the judges to attend the house, 
that their opinions on this matter may be known ; he considered 
it not only repugnant to the principles of the constitution, but ex- 
pressly against the letter of the law. The attempt to raise men 
in Warwickshire and Norfolk has failed, from the opposition of the 
gentry and others. 

Dr. Robertson, in his history of Scotland, says : " When men 
have been accustomed to break through the common boundaries 
of subjects, and their minds are influenced with the passions which 
civil war inspires, it is mere pedantry and ignorance to measure 
their conduct by those rules which can be applied only when 
government is in a state of order and tranquillity. A nation, when 
obliged to employ such extraordinary efforts in defence of its liber- 
ties, avails itself of every thing to promote its great end, and the 
necessity of the case and importance of the object, justify a depar- 
ture from the common and established forms of the constitution." 
This is precisely what a sensible American, whose mind is strongly 
impressed with the right of resistance to the authority and arms of 



168 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1778. 

the mother country, would offer in defence of the many hardships 
and violences imposed on his fellow-countrymen at the present 
momentous crisis. 

Jan. 30. This being in Church of England language, " King 
Charles's martyrdom,^'' it is farcically observed as a fast day ; 
churches open and service suitable to the solemn occasion read. 
To complete the absurdity here, the pulpit of the cathedral was 
covered with black cloth ; the tip-staves, sword, and mace, carried 
before the mayor in the same grim garb. 

TO WILLIAM BROWNE, ESQ , LONDON. 

Exeter, January 30, 1778. 
Dear Sir : 

General Burgoyne's defeat will, I think, prove a prelude to a 
succession of fatal events. The rapid increase of military skill and 
courage that enthusiasm produces, and the great numbers of Euro- 
pean commanders and engineers of experience now incorporated 
amongst the Americans, are considerations that extinguish ray 
expectation of the success of the following campaign, even should 
Great Britain send over in season the number of troops ordered by 
parliament, (and which do not amount to what all who have lately 
arrived from America agree to be necessary to insure success, or 
rather, in any good degree, render it probable.) May those evils 
ruy gloomy mind forebodes, exist only in imagination ; but I must 
confess I see, perhaps through a false vista, the expedition already 
ended in the disgrace of this powerful and wealthy kingdom, and 
in the ruin of that once singularly happy, but now, alas ! deluded, 
wretched America ; for, disconnected from this country, wretched 
it must necessarily be, if anarchy and the most grievous oppressions 
and taxes can make a people so. How weak, inconsistent, and 
dangerous is human conduct, when guided by lawless ambition, or 
any false or wrong motives ! Into what dreadful evils are commu- 
nities often plunged by hearkening to the declamations of pretended 
patriots, of crafty, selfish, unprincipled demagogues of this and 
many other countries; history furnishes us a present mortifying 
proof and example. 

You may console yourself in the late disgrace of the British 
arms, with the hope that it may revive the ardor and bravery hith- 



1778.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 169 

erto so peculiarly characteristic of British troops, but similar causes 
do not always produce similar effects. At the time you refer to, 
Rome was in the meridian of her glory, war the profession of her 
citizens ; her inhabitants, through all her ranks, were at that period 
actuated by the amor patricB, a principle publicly derided in this 
age. Do not think me a cynic, when I say, I fear this nation has 
sunk into too selfish, degenerate, luxurious a sloth, to rise into such 
manly, noble exertions as her critical situation seems to demand : 
for which this people have in times past been famed, as the disaster 
you mention formerly produced among the Romans, and as hereto- 
fore within my own memory, has been the case with this very peo- 
ple. But the breast of every Roman was warmed with the amor 
patria at that period, and with this principle he could brave dan- 
gers, and even death, to bring honor to his country ; — when riches 
poured in upon them from all quarters of the world, when manners 
degenerated, and selfish regards succeeded to the love of country ; 
when luxurious tables and effeminacy among the higher ranks took 
the place of frugal meals, and manly fortitude, with the sense of 
honor sunk into venality and court dependence, they then became 
abject, desponding, cowardly, and were exposed to every invader, 
and instead of bravely defending, abandoned even their lands and 
wealth to be possessed by their courageous army ; and such will 
always be the condition of every people in similar periods of its 
state. But away with politics. 

You ask when I intend to come to London ; to take a long, 
expensive journey that road, I have not at present in contempla- 
tion. Abstract Col. Browne, and a few acquaintances, and London, 
in the present state of my finances, has not charms strong enough 
to attract me thither. With no relish for the amusements and 
dissipations of that unavoidably chargeable residence, I should ill 
exchange my frugal and comfortable board, in a decent family, at 
eight shillings, for twenty, and a long train ofet ceteras, amounting 
to thirty-five more under strictest economy. It would add much to 
my enjoyment, to have the company of my friend Col. Browne, 
with or without a friend or two ; but to encourage his taking so long 
and tedious a journey, I dare not, having nothing to offer him by 
way of equivalent for his trouble, ignorant as I am of his taste and 
views of living : however, should a plan of frugality, inclination to 

22 



170 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1778. 

ramble, or curiosity, push you out of the metropoUs, as the season 
grows milder, and chance or design direct your steps to this plen- 
tiful and cheap quarter, take the following short imperfect sketch. 

Exeter, for its numbers, is somewhat less than Boston ; in 
buildings as unlike as the wrinkled age of fourscore differs from the 
healthy, florid complexion of thirty. To your or any eye familiar 
to modern structures, this place will appear as uncouth as a female 
tricked out in a ruff and fardingale, or in the court dress of old 
Queen Bess. I am led to this comparison, from having often heard 
that the houses, especially in Fore-street, are of her age, and in- 
deed they no more resemble the modern than the dress of that day 
does the present. The streets are narrow, ill-paved, and (I wonder 
"why not to a proverb) dirty. There is a row of buildings in the 
form of the crescent at Bath, in the so called modern style j but 
it is crowded in a corner, out of sight ; built on land belonging to 
the Duke of Bedford, and goes by the name of his title, on the site 
of a late noble palace, wherein Henrietta, the youngest daughter of 
Charles L, was born during his troubles. Within the walls are 
three walks for taking the air ; on the north, a circular one, lying 
back of the castle, encompassed with trees, through which, on the 
outer side, over a vale filled with houses and improved fields, are 
cut vistas ; much frequented here is also the church-yard, or the 
inclosure within walls and gates ; round St. Peter's, the cathedral, 
another hard gravel walk called the Friars, commanding a fine 
field view, besides many others without the city. And for in-door 
amusements, a theatre, concerts, a coffee-house, called Moll's, and 
a hotel, both in the church-yard, where the London papers are 
brought four days in the week. 

Having filled my sheet, I conclude abruptly, like Hudibras 
breaking off in the middle. 

Very sincerely yours, 

S. CURWEN. 

Feb. 3. This was the day appointed for the enthronization or 
installation of Bishop Ross in the episcopal seat. The ceremony 
was performed by Archdeacon Hull of Barnstaple, the proxy, and 
one of the canons of St. Peter's. The chapter, consisting of the 
dean, canons, prebendaries, &c, &c., a set of well-fed priests, all 



1778.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 171 

of the largest dimensions, (except the first, who was in London,) 
walked in procession to the cathedral, preceded by the officers 
properly habited, and whose coming was announced by the sound 
of the great bell. Having arrived into the church, the chapter 
proceeded to the throne, where they all sat down ; after being 
seated a short space, theproxy arose, and advancing to the front, 
read an oration in praise of the late bishop ; concluding with an 
encomium on the present one, in which he declared he took real, 
actual, and corporal possession of the episcopal chair ; these w^ords 
being the same he used, and I fancy an essential part of the form. 
The seat, or throne, as it is called, is of a singular construction, 
and the most magnificent of any j it is a square of sixteen feet, 
lined with crimson silk, the cushions velvet of the same color, 
edged with a broad gold fringe ; the canopy thirty feet high, sup- 
ported by four wrought posts, carved up to the ceiling in Gothic 
open work, decreasing till it ends in pinnacles; opposite stands 
the pulpit ; both at the upper end of the choir. 

Henry Grove, a dissenting minister of Taunton, well known by 
his writings among those of the same profession, WTote Nos. 588? 
601, 626 and 635, in the 8th volume of the Spectator ; and Mr. 
Parr, lately deceased in this city of Exeter, in his eighty-eighth 
year, wrote those signed A. B. in the 6th and 7th volumes, and 
some others, the signature of which his son, Surgeon Parr, told me 
he had forgotten. 

Feb. 10. Received a letter from William Cabot, London, in- 
forming me that by a letter from Nathan Goodale, Salem, all friends 
are well. 

Feb. 14. Received a friendly letter from Mr. Timmins. His 
wife at Boston, seeing no end to the disturbances, is going to pluck 
up stakes, and remove with flocks, herds, and children. 

Lord Camden said the other day in the house of peers, on the 
Duke of Richmond's motion to consider the state of the nation, 
with liberty to refer to such papers as were before them, " the 
origin of the mistake of our ministers in commencing the American 
war, was this : they ignorantly supposed the Americans to be 
cowards, and foolishly imagined the French to be idiots." 

Mr. Woodbridge's answer to the Duke of Richmond (on the 
9th inst.) was, that by Lloyd's coffee-house books, the number of 



172 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1778. 

British vessels taken from May, 1776, to the present time by Ame- 
rican privateers, was seven hundred and thirty-three, containing 
upwards of thirteen thousand men. That the aggregate value of 
the ships and cargoes, after deducting one hundred and seventy- 
four retaken and restored, amounted to jG4,823,000 sterling. The 
number of American privateers one hundred and seventy-three. 
That American products had greatly advanced in price ; tobacco 
from sevenpence to two-and-tenpence, — pitch, from eight shillings 
to thirty-six ; tar, turpentine, oil, and pig iron, in the same pro- 
portion. 

Feb. 15. At the George dissenting meeting-house Sir Henry Tre- 
lawney, of fifteen hundred a year, an Oxford-bred scholar, preached 
from " worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. '' Taking a 
religious turn, he had fallen into Methodism, and set out a flaming 
preacher of their notions, to episcopal orders superadding dissent- 
ino- admonition of the lowest kind. He has charge of a small 
flock in the neighborhood of his own estate ; his natural good sense 
has cooled his first heat, and he now addresses with fervor, but 
candor and affection, a crowded assembly. Just as he entered, 
before service began, an elderly lady in the pew adjoining to the 
one I sat in, sunk down in a fainting fit, and breathed her last 
without a groan or struggle. 

TO WILLIAM BROWNE, ESQ., LONDON. 

Exeter, February 17, 1778. 
Dear Sir : 

I would fain persuade myself my good friend does not enter- 
tain unfavorable sentiments of the rectitude of my principles, what- 
ever doubts he may have of the justness of my opinion respecting 
the appearance of things at this juncture, and the probable issue of 
this destructive quarrel between Great Britain and the colonies. I 
presume it needs no proof to convince him of my leaving America 
under a strong conviction of the almost physical impossibility of her 
waging a successful war with this powerful state, and therefore of 
the unjustifiableness, imprudence, impolicy, and even madness of 
the undertaking. Nothing short of such a state of mind could ab- 
solve me from the imputation of the extremest folly to abandon my 
country, friends, and estate, and all my hopes in this world, at my 



1778.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 173 

time of life, with but little money, few connections here, and no 
expectations. 

********** 

The pernicious system of politics adopted by France, ever since 
she raised her views to universal empire under Louis XIV., has 
justly brought on her the detested character of unfaithful, false, 
crafty, and perfidious ; so that French faith now, like Punic of old, 
you are sensible, goes current in Europe for the four preceding 
characters j nor has the late behavior of the court of Versailles 
failed to verify the disgraceful imputation : even at the very time 
the ministers of France, upon some spirited remonstrances from our 
court, were pouring forth a profusion of seemingly fair promises 
and specious declarations of amity into the lap of Lord Stormont, 
ordering a few vessels with, and a few without cargoes, to be 
restored to their right owners, and even shutting up their ports, on 
paper, against American privateers ; even at that very time, they 
were not only conniving at, but carrying on a contraband trade to 
the revolted colonies. In the port of Nantz there lay, ready to sail 
for America, three or four large ships, laden with all kinds of mer- 
chandise, cannon, and artillery stores, and waiting for a fair wind. 
Is it not a well known fact that the most successful depredations 
on the trade of this island, that have ever taken place in Europe or 
the West Indies, are now making on the latter by French pirates, 
under congressional colors, and that prizes are daily selling at open 
market, and all pretences to reclaim denied ; now and then, indeed, 
to save appearances, in imitation of ministers on this side the 
water, a few feeble, unregarded prohibitions are issued, but none 
executed to effect. 

Spain, whose political and commercial interests so naturally 
ally it to England, that it is even a proverb, " Paz con Inglaterra 
y guerra con todo el mundo"* celebrated from time immemorial for 
honor, true magnanimity, and fidelity to its promises, has ever 
since the Bourbon idiot that now fills its throne,* * * and ever since 
the days of his pusillanimous father, adopted French manners, friv- 
ohty, levity, dress, politics, and faith, to the expulsion of true Cas- 
tilian gravity, dress, honor, and regard to the real interest of the 

* " Peace with England, if war with the rest of the world." 



174 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1778. 

country. Witness the shuffling and chicanery of the court of Ma- 
drid just before the ill-judged declaration of the last war ; review the 
authentic accounts of the friendly reception of the American and 
French privateers, and the open trade of the colonies at Bilboa, 
Cadiz, and all the ports of Spain during these troubles, though 
royal orders, edicts, and mandates, tagged with an " Y el Rey" 
have been successively transmitted down to the seaports. So well 
are the court purposes understood, that within four weeks, two or 
three English prizes were publicly sold in one of the southern ports, 
in open day, and the privateers refreshed and furnished with all 
needed stores, and unmolested suffered to depart, laden with the 
substance and property of the subjects of England. King Solomon 
says, " where the word of a king is, there is power j" this he said 
from his own experience. Who in his wits can believe that the 
Spaniards, or that abject Turkey-race of pirates inhabiting on the 
opposite shore, durst have acted thus in defiance of their sovereign, 
if they had not well known the artful distinction between his secret 
and revealed will ? With regard to the article of Nantz and a 
Spanish port, they are facts that stand, for aught I know, on the 
same footing of credibility with the other articles of foreign intelli- 
gence that pass uncontradicted ; and if these be facts, and facts are 
of a stubborn nature, and bend not to our wishes, they carry con- 
viction, what must we not infer, loth as we may be ? The natural 
inference is, that both these two courts do invariably adhere to the 
line of conduct marked out by them from the commencement of 
this trouble, to distress the government as much as it is in their 
power, and to steal away our trade. The officers that throughout 
the winter arrived at the western ports, passing through this city 
in their journey to London, have one and all declared, as some re- 
ports are, that thirty thousand men, at least, in addition to those 
already in America, are necessary to effectuate the reduction of the 
continent. Probably these persons speak the sentiments of the 
army ; there is not, that I know, reason to think them disaffected to 
the service, nor partial to America. The foregoing convictions are 
the grounds of my fears, apprehensions, and as you ask me whence 
I fetch my facts, my reply is, from the common spring-head of pop- 
ular intelligence. My practice is not to hunt after newspapers, as 
I seldom go to the coffee-houses ; but when they fall by accident 



1778.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 175 

into ray hands, I indiscriminately read all, from the Court Gazette, 
published by authority, to the Sherburne Mercury. The public 
papers, I well know, are justly stigmatized vehicles of falsehood 
and sedition : I rarely attend to political essays or remarks, scarce 
ever give them even a cursory glance ; articles of foreign intelli- 
gence I credit as far as they are free from self-evident inconsisten- 
cies, in respect of time and other circumstances. As to country, my 
principal view in the choice has ever been the instructive and en- 
tertaining ; nor am I unhappy in my few acquaintances here ; my 
chief companion is a philosopher of my old friend the Rev. Mr. 
Gilchrist's stamp, and too deeply 'engaged in moral and philosophi- 
cal researches to trouble one with politics, for that is rarely a topic 
of conversation. 

My friend, in reading this tedious letter, will see the high value 
set upon his good opinion, and trust his candor will make due al- 
lowance for our difference in small matters, while in essentials we 
keep " the faith whole and undejiled." 

Wishing you increasing felicity, I remain 

Your affectionate friend, 

S. Cur WEN. 

Feb. 25. The ministry on the 23d inst. received advices from 
Lord Stormont that five ships of the line and three frigates had 
sailed from Brest to Nantz, in order to convey eighteen transports 
to America, laden w^ith all kinds of military stores, agreeably to 
the commercial treaty subsisting between the French and Ameri- 
cans; the transports to return laden with tobacco from Virginia. 

TO REV. ISAAC SMITH, SIDMOUTH. 

Exeter, Feb. 25, 1778. 
Dear Sir : 

I presume you have seen Lord North's answer to Charles James 
Fox and Mr. Grenville in the house ;* 'tis possible, nay, too proba- 
ble, but His not authenticated by the ambassador." This fatal treaty 
is at length executed ; the coup de grace is given to British glory 

* To the inquiry whether it was true that a treaty had been made be- 
tween France and America. 



176 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1778. 

— its sun is set — alas, how fallen ! How short-sighted is human 
wisdom, how weak is human power at best ! The roar of the Brit- 
ish lion will no more be heard; the French cock may now crow 
and strut undisturbed. 

Americans that lately were humble supplicants to Great Britain 
for aid against a few French troops and Indian savages, disturbing 
her frontier settlements, have dared — what have they dared ? — to 
renounce her authority ; have set her power at defiance ; reduced her 
commerce ; defeated her armies ; sunk her national credit, nay, in- 
sulted her coasts, established their independence in spite of all ef- 
forts, and, tell it not in Gath, allied itself to her natural, professed, 
and most dangerous enemy. 

******* 

Your friend, S. Curwen. 

Feb. 28. Received Lord North's two acts respecting the right 
of taxation confined to commerce, and appointing commissioners to 
adjust all matters in dispute. These offers are, I fear, too late ; the 
fatal treaty with France is already signed. 

March 2. By the mayor's zeal for a strict observance of the 
fast, an order to prohibit hair-dressers and bakers exercising their 
callings was published. In Canon Barlow's sermon in St. Peter's 
were these remarkable expressions, which for a dignitary of the 
established church wishing to rise, are singularly and dangerously 
bold. He said, " the war with America was unjust ; that they are 
a religious people and may expect a blessing, and we the re- 
verse." 

March 6. The court hurried away the Andromeda with Lord 
North's conciliatory propositions to the Howes in America. 

March 8. Yesterday the French ambassador declared to Lord 
Weymouth, that France had signed a treaty of amity and alliance, 
or of friendship and commerce, with the United States of America, 
who, said he, are in full possession of independence, as pronounced 
by them on the fourth of July, 1776, without stipulating any ex- 
clusive advantages in favor of the French nation, and that the Uni- 
ted States have reserved to themselves liberty of treating with 
every nation whatever, upon the same footing of especiality and 
reciprocity. 



1778.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 177 

Being in the country, our advices from London are that a war 
with France is dreaded ; there is fear of a general bankruptcy. — 
It is further said the present administration is almost universally 
reprobated — 'tis in my mind a doubt whether in the dregs of the 
state less interested ministers can be found, though perhaps of more 
salutary politics, but the problem time only can solve. All men 
here love money and power too ardently to sacrifice either to 
interest or peace of state. 'Tis therefore, I fancy, equally indiffer- 
ent who are or shall be our political cooks; the pottage, I fear, 
will be spoiled. Stocks have fallen to 59 1-2, which has pro- 
duced an almost universal panic. 

March 15. Despatches for the Howes passed through this 
city ; contents a secret. 

TO DR. JOHN PRINCE, HALIFAX. 

Exeter, March 15, 1778. 
Dear Sir : 

Your favor of the 20th Jan. came to my hands a few days since 
from London ; the advice of your retreat to Halifax I received in a 
letter from my friend Col. Browne. The spirit of intolerance 
among our New England brethren I vainly wished might have 
abated, they having, at the period of your departure, nothing to 
dread from the few individuals who could not, toto corde, embrace 
the political orthodoxy of the multitude and their directors. I 
doubt not that prudence would have screened and secured you from 
the rage and insult of the lower classes, and rendered life tolera- 
ble, if prudence could have had its due influence ; but, such is the 
popular violence when once it unhappily takes place, and may be 
exercised without restraint and fear of punishment, that like an 
irresistible torrent it bears down all before it ; laws, justice, truth, 
religion, the rights of humanity, civility, conscience, are made to 
rush impetuous down the mighty stream. 

I ardently wish once more to visit my natale solum, and impa- 
tiently wait for the day of my redemption ; would I could say it 
draweth nigh, but I see no end of the baneful ill-omened war, for 
news has arrived of a declaration by France against us. Should 
it prove true, Great Britain has the worst to fear ; even her inde- 

23 



178 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1778. 

pendency is at stake ; for aught I can see, France has drawn down 
from the interior almost all her troops to the English channel. 
She has forty-four capital ships ready for sea ; not a vessel is al- 
lowed to pfo to Newfoundland from France, in order to man the 
fleet. La Motte Piquet with five capital ships and eighteen large 
transports sailed about a fortnight since, avowedly bound to 
America, laden with military stores. Spain has forty capital ships 
ready for sea, which are waiting only for the arrival of the Vera 
Cruz fleet ; should then these united fleets of more than fourscore 
ships attempt invasion, Great Britain has only thirty-seven ships 
of the line and eleven frigates to oppose them. 

Lord North has proposed terms of reconciliation, but nothing 
short of independency will go down with the colonies. France 
will support them \ all thoughts of conquest, of unconditional sub- 
mission, be assured, are given up ; and I fear much more, that the 
colonies have, contrary to their real interest and safety, entered 
into a league offensive and defensive against the parent state. — 
But it is a melancholy truth, which almost every day's experience 
verifies, that passion and resentment often urge men and states to 
actions and courses destructive of their manifest interest and safety, 
and such will America find in the end this alliance will prove, 
should Great Britain in the event become thereby oppressed. I 
could wish (but wishes, alas, are vain) America had seen her in- 
terest in another point of light; far, very far am I from wishing 
her oppressed, or her liberties restrained ; I am fully convinced 
the colonies will never find any good purpose answered by inde- 
pendence. God only knows what is before us, and may we be 
prepared for his allotments with submissive resignation. 

I find myself fast declining into the vale of life, therefore less 
able to struggle with the unavoidable evils of this inconstant state, 
than in the days of more strength and vigor. 

Believe me, with real regard, yours, 

S. CURWEN. 

TO GEORGE RUSSELL, ESQ., BIRMINGHAM. 

Exder, March 16, 1778. 
Dear Sir : 

The dark and threatening cloud hanging over this island calls 



1778.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 179 

aloud for a more serious turn of mind than seems to characterize 
the present period ; but hovv^ sadly true is tho reverse of such a 
state of mind amongst us at this day ; thoughtlessness, levity, 
frivolous manners, mirth and music, seem to have seized, and en- 
gross the upper ranks ; attention to business and a supine disregard 
to national danger and honor, do they not too justly characterize 
the middle ranks 1 As for the canaille, they are here, as they ever 
have been, and will be in all states and times, stupidly inditFerent 
and unconcerned in the midst of impending destruction. If the 
features of this ill-favored portrait are in your opinion too harsh, 
believe me, it was not drawn by a pencil dipped in gall, nor dic- 
tated by envious misanthropy ; I am no cynic, nor cursed with the 
spirit of a cloistered monk. The warmest regards to the country 
which by long residence has become an altera patria, and holds 
the second place in ray affection, few and faint as my connections 
with individuals are, — the most earnest wishes of my heart for its 
safety, and foreboding apprehensions of its danger and dishonor, 
occasion the painful reflections that cease not hourly to distress my 
mind. 

When I contemplate the decline and final period of states 
great and powerful, and their causes, M'hich in the history of the 
world are found to be uniformly the same ; that often in the midst 
of thoughtless security and apparent safety they are on the brink 
of ruin, and often suddenly and unexpectedly plunged irretrievably 
therein ; that as divines say Avith regard to men, and experience 
confirms its truth in both respects, " m the midst of life we are in 
death ;" — I cannot review the state of Great Britain four years 
since, and regard the present alarming crisis without horror, with- 
out trembling. Perhaps to a mind by nature formed and turned 
as mine unhappily is, to doubt and despondency, danger may pre- 
sent a more ghastly, terrifying aspect than is natural ; be it so, may 
my apprehensions exist only in imagination. I had much rather 
have weakness of judgment, ignorance and error justly imputed to 
me, than that the event should verify my predictive fears : — I had 
rather be a mistaken man than a true prophet. 

France and Spain, to compare great things with small, like the 
heroes in romance, are armed cap-a-pie, at all points, ready to sally 



180 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1778. 

forth, not like those redoubted sons of Mars and Venus to relieve 
distress, but to cause it. Your friend, &c. 

S. CURWEN. 

March 17. This being assize week, Judges Perryn and Ho- 
tham were waited on by the sheriff and his officers, about two 
■dozen in livery. Commission sat in Guildhall : — Baron Perryn on 
the bench; great celerity in despatching business, and great inter- 
ruption by talking, which the court authorities could not remove. 

March 20. Heard the dreaded sound, war declared against 
•France ! It is reported the house of lords is almost in a tumult, 
and that they implore the king to drive from his service his minis- 
ters, and take Lords Chatham, Camden, and Shelburne. 

March 21. The judges left the city, escorted out by the sheriff 
-and his train, — trumpets preceding, etc. 



1778.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 181 



CHAPTER IX. 

TO JUDGE SEWALL, LONDON. 

Exeter, March 23, 1778. 
Dear Sir : 

I was meditating an answer to your favor, when the alarming 
intelligence of the French court's perfidious dealings, and the hourly 
expectation of war against her, arrived here. The denouement of 
the plot, by the French ambassador's declaring in form to Lord 
Weymouth his court's interference and engagement to support the 
claims of Congress, seems at present to render all speculation on 
the subject of Great Britain's further attempts to reduce her late 
deluded subjects in America needless : presuming all thoughts in 
regard to vigorous efforts being to be laid aside, superseded, at least 
for the present, as the papers inform us no more troops are to be 
sent out. 

These events my fears have been long predictive of; not that 
I pretend to the spirit of prophecy, or the gift of second sight. 
States, like individuals, are liable to so many sudden and unlocked 
for vicissitudes, disappointments, untoward accidents, and evils that 
neither wisdom can foresee, nor power nor prudence prevent ; he 
whose mind, not however to the increase of his enjoyment, leans 
towards doubts, fears, and apprehensions of evils, generally finds 
more events corresponding to his forebodings, than he whose atten- 
tion is turned to the brighter and more pleasing views that hope 
presents. 

The plan Lord North has oflfered, is, it seems to me, founded in 
wisdom and sound policy, as you observe it contains nearly all that 
America can reasonably wish for, and as it is, thence she can de- 
rive more real happiness and safety than is fondly and vainly ex- 
pected from their favorite, long wished for, and perhaps short-lived 
independence : — for should Great Britain in this expected war be 
oppressed, what will save some of the colonies from falling a prey 
to the insatiable ambition of those powerful crowns united, I know 



182 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1778. 

not ; it would be well if they should be satisfied with the recovery 
of their late possessions there. The consideration of the burden 
necessary to maintain an independent state with dignity has never 
yet, I presume, during the feverish paroxysm of our new legislators 
and government-modellers, been a subject of calculation ; for how- 
ever fertile their brains have been of expedients, they are, I fear, 
but indifferently skilled in political arithmetic. 

Your sentiments on the operation of the two conciliatory acts, 
and answers to objectors, appear to me to be perfectly just, and I 
am happy to say mine are so completely coincident, that had I 
taken as many hours, as probably were employed in writing them 
down, I could not have expressed them in terras so clear, concise, 
and satisfactory to myself as in the letter I am now considering ; I 
can therefore subscribe to them toto ex animo. The improbability 
of their acceptance of the terms offered on the other side of the 
water, and of Great Britain's ability to force them into a compliance 
at present, seems to be a matter out of dispute. I am not vain 
enough to wish myself in the king's councils, but I ardently wish 
that imaginary principle of national honor, the king's honor, might 
in this critical and dangerous condition the nation seems to be in, 
be dispensed with and given up to infinitely more important con- 
siderations, notwithstanding the clamors and reproaches to be ex- 
pected from discontented, interested party men. That the war, 
should it unfortunately soon commence, to vindicate the king's 
honor or nation's, must produce disgrace and irreparable losses to 
the nation, a review of the present force Great Britain has, her 
foreign dominions, etc., and the force requisite to secure her right, 
may perhaps convince : — nor less so. Great Britain's inability at 
present to force a compliance or convince them by military exer- 
tions, that it is their interest to accept her reasonable offers. The 
lucky minute for such an offer is past, irretrievably past, and a 
series of surprising events, owing to ill concerted plans, interested 
views, a total disregard to the public weal, or, if you please, a cer- 
tain fatality, has taken place, by which colonies of inestimable 
value are lost to this country ; and I wish the loss may end there. 

The subject that at present most employs and oppresses my 
mind is the critical and dancjerous situation that the kingdom seems 
to be in. The tottering condition of national credit, the weak state 



1778.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 183 

of the navy, the great power of the enemy, and the low price of 
stocks, as low as at the end of the last eight years' war, when the 
nation was almost drained of its specie, are the considerations on 
which I form my opinion. Lord North, on presenting the king's 
rescript to the house, uttered what was sufficiently alarming, that 
the reluctance to the present loan arose not so much from the pros- 
pect of war, as the largeness of the national debt ; it is of little im- 
portance what is the cause, should a national bankruptcy happen. 
Should another panic like that of last Saturday again seize the 
monied men, and continue, and the loan be stopped, no one but 
may foresee the most dreadful consequences ; should the present 
loan be completed, a new war would require another of equal 
amount, and the low price of stocks continuing, it will be well, if 
instead of <£450,000 premium paid more than in 1765, ,£900,000 
would tempt the lenders to advance, unless new resources can be 
found, which my ignorance on this point makes me incompetent to 
judge. It is a fact of too much notoriety to be denied, if the con- 
tractors avail themselves of the immense debt by this artful, selfish 
management, the public is supplied at an extravagant, unreasona- 
ble profit to the lenders, founded I suppose on this principle, that a 
sponge, sooner or later, must wipe all out at a stroke. It is cer- 
tain the more government has occasion to borrow, proportionably 
are its disadvantages in procuring supplies ; and unless a new and 
reformed system of economy be adopted, the premiums may not 
unlikely rise to cent per cent, especially if Mr. Burke's assertions 
in the House of Commons be true, that the contractors made a 
profit of 57 1-2 per cent. Should America be lost to this country, 
with her will be lost a considerable revenue, and what can be sub- 
stituted in its room, financiers can best tell us. Should a war with 
the Bourbon family be attended with any possessions in the East 
or West Indies, and thereby other valuable branches of the revenue 
be cut oflT, I leave you to judge the distresses that must unavoida- 
bly befall this nation. The wealth of all nations is exhaustible. 
All things are called greater or less, stronger or weaker, by com- 
parison. The fleet of Great Britain is, in itself considered, great 
and formidable, but when compared to the united fleet of the two 
Bourbons, whether it does in its present condition deserve that cha- 
racter, no Englishman will, I presume, affirm : — fifty-one English 



184 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1778. 

line of battle ships, no one in his senses will say are a match for 
eighty-six French and Spanish ships of equal force. Confident as 
we may be of the superiority of our English sailors to all other 
nations in vigor, bravery and skill, we should be loth to put our 
liberties or independency on the success of a battle fought under 
such confessedly disadvantageous and unequal circumstances ; and 
the ability of Great Britain to build and fit for the sea such an ad- 
ditional number as will put us on an equal or superior footing, be- 
fore some fatal blow be struck, is a question on which the well- 
being if not existence of this kingdom as an independent state may 
depend. In my view I could wish national as well as royal honor 
might in this case be yielded up to the infinitely more important 
consideration of our self-preservation, and the gross affronts of- 
fered by France pocketed till they can be resented with a fair 
chance of coming off victors in the quarrel. Should a war speed- 
ily be entered into before we are better prepared for offence and 
defence, I can't help fearing this late powerful and flourishing em- 
pire to be hastening by large strides to irrevocable ruin and indeli- 
ble disgrace, and but too likely to furnish a second instance in this 
period of a once great, rich and powerful state reduced to insignifi- 
cancy in the pohtical scale of Europe, by a dismemberment of 
some of its most valuable appendages, consigned over to its am- 
bitious and more powerful neighbors. I wish posterity may not 
quote Poland and Great Britain as states in the same predicament 
from the future annals of Europe. 

This ill-favored picture probably you may laugh at, but it is to 
be remembered you are supported by hopes, I oppressed by fears ; 
you in the train of Heraclitus, I of the weeping philosopher ; but 
nature has formed us of different materials in our original contex- 
ture, and on my part habit and accident have confirmed the unhappy 
bias. Whatever your sentiments may be of this reverie, dream, 
rhapsody, or whatever indignant epithet you may perhaps justly 
enough think it deserving of; I know you will believe me when I tell 
you they are the real sentimentsof a mind oppressed with concern for 
the safety, welfare and honor of a country, which by long residence 
has become my altera patricB, and for aught I know will continue 
to be so till I take my flight to the upper regions, or time shall 
cease to be no more with me here. Continue to think favorably, 



1778,] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 185 

and believe me what is ray highest ambition to be, an honest man, 
and your affectionate friend, 

S. CURWEN. 

Exeter, March 31. Witnessed a long dispute on American af- 
fairs between Mr. Bretland and Mr. Erving. I did not interfere ; 
the opponents neither convinced nor conquered, as is usual in such 
cases. 

April 8. Heard of Rebecca Tyng's marriage to John Lowell 
of Newburyport. Visited Mr. Tremlet's on David's hill with com- 
pany as follows : the parson of the parish and lady, Mr. Pearce, 
Mrs. Abbot and Miss Hicks ; after tea passed half an hour in his 
delightful garden ; he presented me with a beautiful bouquet of a 
great variety of odoriferous flowers, now adorning my room. 

Jipril 9. Mr. Erving called me out to walk; our course 
Cowley bridge. He seems of a sensible, grave turn, not unac- 
quainted with moral science, and exceedingly communicative. 
Afterwards rode to Topsham on horseback ; passed by an estate 
kept in the male branch of a family, without addition or diminu- 
tion ever since the conquest. 

Jipril 11. With Mr. and Miss Bretland rambled through 
Winiford lane to Heavitree ; in one of the buttresses of the church 
grows out a yew-tree, three feet high, cut into a fanciful form, and 
supposed to receive its nourishment from cement moistened by rain 
and dew% The church has marks of age and decay. 

Jipril 13. Mr. Smith from Sidmouth breakfasted with me; 
visited Mr. Morgan confined by illness ; there met Mr. Berry of 
Crediton. The land tax at four shillings in the pound produces 
two millions ; the real tax on a medium is two shillings nearly, 
which, being a tenth part of income, makes that to be twenty mil- 
lions. Should an expensive war or some unforeseen accident 
throw the nation into a convulsion, and discourage lending and 
lessen supplies, it wo>ild, of course, reduce the value of lands, per- 
haps to twenty-five years purchase ; their real value then would 
be five hundred millions. Court value of the kingdom supposed to 
be eighteen millions, for the following reasons, viz. : fifteen mil- 
lions were brought into the mint to be new coined on proclamation ; 
the remainder, coin of George 11. and III., full weight, still con- 

24 



186 JOURNAL AND LETTERS, [1778. 

tinuing current, amount to three millions. Amount of fabrics, 
plate, etc. etc., on a modest computation, is worth one hundred 
millions ; making in all six hundred millions. 

A nation possessing more than twice as much as it owes, need 
not fear bankruptcy; — England's debt being one hundred and 
sixty millions. I pretend not to judge what would be the full issue 
of a shock to national credit, much less dare I determine ; but I 
confess, I fear it would be followed by dreadful convulsions, and 
produce cruel ravages and carnage among the lower classes, who, 
being deprived of daily subsistence for want of daily employ, on 
stoppage of trade and manufactures, would not contentedly sit 
down and suffer themselves with their wives and little ones to 
perish with hunger ; nor even those whose large incomes, derived 
from national funds, being now stopped, are reduced to a level with 
the most indigent, and whose wants being supplied from their 
charity, are now their equal fellow-sufferers. 

List of men by last returns, for America 19,381 ; prisoners 
5,336; sick 4,639; loss in navy 4,314; army in New-York, 
Philadelphia, Rhode Island and Canada 36,731 ; to recruit army to 
what it was last year 11,885 ; captures made by Americans amount 
to je2,600,000. 

April 20. On horseback to Spencecomb, the seat of Mr. Rowe, 
near Crediton, in company with Mr. and Miss Bretland ; passed an 
agreeable day, with a numerous company ; this is a week of fes- 
tivity following Easter Sunday — hospitably lodged and entertained ; 
our host is of the rank called gentlemen-farmers, or landholders in 
fee of estates from <£100 to j£800 sterling per annum. A medal 
has lately been struck at Paris, by order of Monsieur Voltaire, in 
honor of General Washington ; on one side is the bust of the gen- 
eral, with this inscriptign : " G. Washington, Esq., commander of 
the continental army in America." The reverse is decorated with 
the emblems of war, and the following : " Washington reunit par 
une rare assemblage les talens du Guerrier et les vertus du Sage." 

April 26. Commissioners appointed to go over to America to 
settle the dispute, if practicable. Earl of Carlisle, Lord Howe, Sir 
Wm. Howe, Wm. Eden, Esq., and Governor Johnston, sailed from 
Spithead on the 22d, and I fear it will prove a re infedd business. 



1778.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 187 

TO HON. WILLIAM BROWNE, LONDON. 

Exeter, April 26, 1778. 

Dear Sir : 

By our common friend, Mr. Smith, just returned by way of 
Bristol, I am informed Mrs. Browne is with you ; 'tis with great 
sincerity I congratulate her and you on her safe arrival ; would to 
God it had been under more favorable circumstances ; such as they 
are, your religion and philosophy, I am well assured, can improve 
them to the best purposes. I presume London will not long con- 
tinue the place of your abode ; if you have no predilection for a 
particular quarter, and are deliberating what course to take, no- 
thing shall be wanting on my part to afford you all the information 
respecting these parts you may wish to have. It would yield me 
inexpressible satisfaction, could Exeter, or its neighborhood, be 
your choice ; I can assure you, that for cheapness, plenty and good 
provisions, especially fish, poultry, game, and garden stuff, noplace 
excels and few equal it. Late conversations with Col. Ervino-, 
from whom I had intimations of your desire to him last January to 
be informed relative to these parts, (who owns himself to blame 
in not attending to it,) induce the foregoing. If your views are 
fixed, I wnsh the pleasure of your abode may be equal to your 
highest wishes. A line from my worthy friend will never fail to 
be a most acceptable present. With the warmest wishes for your 
felicity, I am 

Yours and Mrs. Browne's aflfectionate friend, 

S. CURWEN. 
TO JOHN TIMMINS, ESQ., LONDON. 

Exeter, April 30, 1778. 
Dear Sir: 

I have this day received a letter from Eben. West, now on 
board the Medway, lying in the Downs, who is in want of neces- 
saries. He was with me in my business at the commencement of 
the troubles in New England, and by consent, left me to go to sea 
in his father's employ, till taken by the Enterprise frigate, on the 
20th of last July, carried to Gibraltar, and from thence brought to 
England, where he has been ever since. I think it but charity to 



188 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1778. 

advance a little for him, and therefore wish you to convey two 
guineas to him for me. I presume Mr. William Cabot w^ould not 
refuse an old neighbor's son some small assistance, nor Col. Browne 
a young suffering townsman, to whom, as occasion may serve, you 
will do me a favor by mentioning his name, with the situation he 
is in; nor would it be improper if they could procure a small sup- 
ply of money from his countrymen, who must have a fellow-feeling 
of others' sufferings, at the same time themselves experiencing the 
evil of banishment from their country and the means of subsistence. 
I am your obliged friend and humble servant, 

S. CURWEN. 

May 1. Walked with Col. Erving to Mr. John Tremlet's 
^house, David's hill, (the supposed site of an old Roman temple,) 
to see a lamp having Diana's emblem, a crescent ; the points 
crowned each with a ball, and thought to belong to a temple of 
the goddess there, judged of more than two thousand years' anti- 
quity. This being May-day, the milk maids walk in procession 
with their pyramid of plate, as usual on this day. 

May 5. Mr. Smith brought me a Massachusetts exclusion bill, 
whereby all who left New England after 19th April, 1775, are for- 
ever banished, and their estates forfeited. 

May 7. Took tea at Col. Erving's, with Mr. Smith ; agreed 
on a journey to Tiverton with them. 

May 8. At nine o'clock set out in a post-chaise with Mr. and 
Mrs. Erving, and my friend Mr. Smith on horseback, to Tiverton. 
Alighted at Three Tuns inn, at twelve o'clock, passing on a plea- 
sant turnpike fourteen miles. This town is supported by serge- 
making, for which it was formerly noted, now believed to be on 
the decline. Some houses in good taste ; it has two dissenting 
congregations and one Anabaptist ; the Episcopal church is a 
venerable pile, low, outside greatly ornamented ; tower lofty, the 
inside contains many funereal monuments, some of ancient date. 

Here is a noted school, called Blandell's, famous in the west ; 
sends off yearly some students to Oxford and Cambridge; its num- 
bers about fourscore. Besides here is an academy for dissenters' 
children, kept by a Mr. Kiddle, the minister, and one for young 
ladies. Has abundance of shops. Adjoining the church is a lofty 



1778.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 189 

situation, commanding an extensive and pleasing view of the neigh- 
boring vale, through which the Exe runs, bounded by a long 
range of moderately high hills improved and inclosed to summit ; 
returned home by eight o'clock. 

May 9. Rode with Mr. Cross to Star Cross, at the mouth of 
the river Exe, opposite Exmouth. 

May 11. Removed my lodgings to Sidmouth, and for which 
purpose I mounted my Rosinante, and departed in company w^ith 
Mr. Smith, after dinner, having ordered the messenger on with my 
baggage. Taking the road through Topsham, we staged it at 
Ebford, the seat of the widow Lee, a wealthy, hospitable, dissent- 
ing lady ; here we alighted and took tea. The family having with- 
draw^n to the house in the neighborhood, called the " Hermitage," 
to divert themselves at a game of quadrille, that our coming inter- 
rupted, notwithstanding repeated desires to the contrary. The 
family consists of an elderly lady, daughter and her husband, a Mr. 
Yates and young parson Jarvis, the dissenting ministers of Lime- 
stone. From thence we departed, passing through Woodbury, Ot- 
terton, and across Peak hill, and arrived at my former lodgings at 
Robert Follet's. 

Sidmouth, May 13. Rode to Wishcombe in company with 
William Carsluck and two young ladies named Upjohn of Exeter; 
dined, drank tea, and returned before eight o'clock. 

May 21. Rode to Taunton ; passing through Honiton and 
Blackdown, I arrived at Whiteheart, visited Mr. Welraan and 
Parson Ward ; drank tea wnth the latter. Evening and supper 
at Mr. Toulmin's, the Baptist minister ; lodged at the inn. Next 
morning departed for Poundisford, the seat of a Mr. Hawker, a 
dissenting worthy gentleman of fortune ; passed an agreeable day, 
and lodged there. 

Poundisford, May 23. At eleven o'clock, in company with 
Mr, Hawker we departed, shaping our course for Chard, where 
we arrived at two o'clock. Between our two stages, on a lofty 
ridge, are the remains of an old castle, in the country dialect 
Laratch; supposed, but I know not for what reason, to have been 
of Roman construction. Chard, where we arrived about two 
o'clock, is a manufacturing town ; its lifeless appearance but too 
justly confirms the general opinion that its trade is in a consumptive 



190 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1778. 

state ; its buildings hardly above the village style, one wide com- 
modious street, paved, having several reputable houses in it. One 
Episcopal church, and two or three dissenting meeting-houses ; the 
manufacturing towns generally abound in people of the latter per- 
suasion. At five o'clock left, and passing over an excellent turnpike 
road, entered Axminster, distant seven miles, without alighting, 
and proceeded on to Seaton, where we in vain attempted to find the 
remains, if any, of the old Roman port said to have been estab- 
lished here, but it was liic labor, hoc opus. Turning our backs to 
the English channel, we proceeded to Mr. Slade's at Colyton, 
here taking up our rest for two nights ; the doctor supplying this 
pulpit in exchange with Mr. Cornish, the minister, who did his 
duty at Sidmouth. 

Colyton, May 24. Entertained by the conversation of Mr. 
Slade's youngest daughter, excelling the common standard in point 
of understanding, knowledge, and good breeding. Took a field 
walk with all the family, and to the top of a hill com.raanding a 
view of a finely improved country all around, including the whole 
vale from the mouth of the Axe to Axminster. 

May 25. We set off at meridian, proceeding to Baldash, the 
seat of a Mr. Hook, where we abode till I had bargained for a 
horse to be sent me at an agreed time ; from hence departed for 
Wishcombe ; dined and passed the evening at cards with Mr. John 
Carsluck, his sister Miss C, and a Miss Snell, very agreeably ; 
pressed to lodge, but Mr. Smith withstood their entreaties, and 
carried me off reluctantly enough at nine o'clock. 

May 28. Walked on the beach and up Salcomb hill with 
Messrs. Erving and Smith ; an extensive prospect from Portland 
to the Start ; within these two headlands fifteen leagues ; the bay 
is called Carnarvon. 

TO HON. JUDGE SEWALL, BRISTOL. 

Sidmouth, May 31, 1778. 
Dear Sir : 

Your favors of the 1st ult. and 8th inst. were delivered to me 
yesterday afternoon, by the hands of a fair young lady in the alcove 
on the beach, in this place, being the second day of my removal 
hither from Exeter, which makes since my arrival in England just 



1778.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 191 

the number of mother Rowlandson's " removes." Having taken 
minutes of them, I fancy they cannot fail under the correct hand of 
a judicious friend to form a sensible appendix in the next edition of 
that curious performance, unless you prefer the following title : — 
" The perils and peregrinations of a tory or refugee, in quest of 
civil liberty, which the author fondly imagined was to be enjoyed 
in higher perfection in the land he travelled through, than in that 
he precipitately abandoned, without money to support, friends to 
advise, or wisdom to guide him." 

Having made a short ramble the other day to Taunton and its 
neighborhood, it came into my mind to point out to you the most 
agreeable route, should you continue of the mind to take a journey 
to these parts during the bathing season. As you will doubtless 
prefer a post-chaise, you may command your own time, and choose 
your road ; in this case you will find the Wells road as pleasant as 
any. On your arrival there, you will not fail to take a view of the 
cathedral, which presents perhaps as fine, if not the finest front of 
any old Gothic church in England. Within, it is renowned that I 
know of, for nothing ; its size is one of the smallest, and its bishop's 
palace one of the largest, and has the appearance from the moat 
and battlements to have been the residence rather of a warlike 
baron, than of a peaceable minister of religion. From hence, at 
about four miles distant, is a natural cavern in the Mendip hills, 
called Okey or Wolkey Hole ; it is well worth visiting, and is of 
the same kind, although not so deep, as that of the Peak of Derby. 
From hence to Bridgewater, the famous Glastonbury monastery lies 
right on your road, where you will probably stop at the inn. Your 
curiosity when there cannot fail of being highly gratified by a view 
of its remains, of which it is, however, almost pillaged. Between 
this last place and Bridgewater, the turnpike is delightful, and if 
your driver should be as complaisant as mine, he will run you a 
distance of fifteen miles in an hour and a half. In this stage you 
will pass over a ridge dividing the great Somerset moor, extending 
beyond the reach of the eye, and filled with innumerable herds of 
black cattle, from that called King's Sedgemore, lying on the left, 
celebrated you know in history for the defeat of the unfortunate 
Duke of Monmouth, in 1685. Far beyond, on that side, is seen 
the obelisk raised by the late Lord Chatham to the memory of his 



192 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [ 1778. 

benefactor, Sir William Pynsent. From Bridgewater, at four or 
five miles distant, lying two miles out of the road to Taunton, lies 
Enmore Castle, a seat of Lord Egmont, built on the plan and in 
the style of the old baronial castles. 

Your next stage is the pretty town of Taunton, situated in a 
vale or bottom called Taunton-Deanvale, remarkable for length, 
breadth, and fertility ; of the former thirty miles, second ten or 
twelve, and for the latter exceeded by none. In this stands the 
tower of its principal church, called Mary Magdalen, which will at- 
tract your attention, being more crowded with Gothic decorations 
than any edifice of that size that has fallen under your view. 

Should you think it proper to take the road over Blackdown, 
and so through Honiton, rather than through Wellington and Col- 
lumpton road, you will on the ascent of Blackdon hill, about 
five miles this side of Taunton, before you have reached the sum- 
mit, on a retrospection of the whole length and breadth of the vale, 
see cultivation in its highest state of improvement, and a luxuri- 
ancy, verdure and fruitage, no other region can boast of. You will, 
I doubt not, join with me in saying so pleasing a rural view is not 
to be seen but from this spot. From Taunton to Honiton is seven- 
teen miles, and from thence to this place is nine, or to Exeter six- 
teen. You will, T know, take this intimation in good part 
Very affectionately your friend, 

S. CURWEN. 

June 1. Dr. Price, in his fast sermon on Feb. 10, speaking of 
the dependence of a nation's safety on righteous men, has the follow- 
ing : " There is a distant country, once united to this, where every 
inhabitant has in his house, as a part of his furniture, a book on 
law and government, to enable him to understand his colonial 
rights ; a musket to enable him to defend those rights ; and a Bible 
to understand and practise religion. What can hurt such a coun- 
try ? Is it any wonder we have not succeeded ? How secure 
must it be while it preserves its virtue against all attacks." 

June 12. Between five and six o'clock rode with my two fel- 
low boarders to Ottery beacon, commanding a prospect of Ottery 
vale as far as Sir George Young's seat, in the neighborhood of 
Honiton. Continued ride over the ridge till Honiton appeared in 



1778.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 193 

view ; returned in a mist through Sidbury, Sidford, etc., and in a 
moist plight at eight o'clock dismounted. 

Jime 13. A large fleet appeared in the offing; near thirty 
capital ships, judged to be Keppel's. Invited by Mr. Skaddon to 
a sight of the cane King Charles I. had in his hand at his trial, 
from whence the gold head dropped off in court ; interpreted by 
the credulous as an ill omen. — It is a beautiful stick, and finely 
shaded, and I suppose as much revered by his infatuated admirers, as 
Aaron's rod that budded was by the devout Israelites. He also 
possesses the Duke of Northumberland's golden key as Lord Cham- 
berlain, which, when he acts in that capacity, is fastened to his 
pocket flaps. Also King Charles II. 's cabinet, and some fine old 
royal porcelain, as precious relics of infinite value. 

June 15. An early ride to Peak hill; a distant sight of 
Portland and about Abbotsbury. 

June 22. Rode with Mr. Ogburn to Woodbury Castle, so called, 
the remains of a Danish fort, standing on the edge of a lofty range 
of hills ; the ramparts of earth and ditches still remain. The place 
of arms contains about five acres : on the highest point is a house 
built for hunting parties, etc., the roof projects in front, supported 
by four pillars in rustic order, the bark remaining unstripped. 
From hence to Exmouth to dinner ; a famous bathing town ; nearly 
four hundred strangers have been here at a time. More handsome 
houses than Sidmouth ; returned home before eight o'clock. 

June 24. This day my friend Mr. Isaac Smith was ordained 
to the pastoral office over the little congregation of dissenters here. 
A minister of the Episcopal church, whose curiosity prompted him 
to attend, continued through the whole service, expressed great 
delight at, and approbation of the performances, and a high opin- 
ion of the solemnity and propriety of the whole. Pity that the 
narrowness of party keeps asunder and divides in affection men en- 
gaged in the same worthy design, and servants of the same kind 
and benevolent master, whose chief command is mutual love and 
good-will. 

June 28. Mr. Berguyn, a North Carolina gentleman, called on 
his w^ay to Falmouth to take passage in a packet for America ; 
encouraged by their assembly having voted to admit all refugees 
who apply. 

25 



194 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1778. 

June 30. Admiral Keppel's fleet has taken three French 
frigates. 



TO HON. WILLIAM BROWNE, CARDIFF, SOUTH WALES. 

Sidmouth, June 30, 1778. 
Dear Sir : 

I hope this will not be as long on the road as your favor of the 
12th of May, that came to hand only a month after date. I de- 
layed an answer that I might be more explicit to your question 
about the houses I mentioned to you ; they are not furnished, but 
furniture is to be obtained at fifteen per cent., beds and such arti- 
cles at twelve. This I have from Col. Erving, who is now at Ex- 
eter, but does not propose to abide there longer than the 25th of 
September, when his lease will expire. Where to retreat he seems 
undetermined ; he wishes to reside among people hospitable, social, 
unceremonious and not dressy ; if such can be found. He requests 
you to inform him through me, whether you have received any 
information respecting Abergavenny in Monmouth. Is it pleasant, 
and has it a plentiful and cheap market 1 Are furnished houses to 
be had cheap ? Are the people hospitable, social, and disposed to 
form an unceremonious acquaintance, and are they expensive in 
dress and dinners ? The same is requested respecting Cowbridge 
and Cardiff. Do you intend remaining at your present abode for a 
long time, and who is with you in your neighborhood, and do they 
propose to remain 1 

My present companions are Dr. Smith, just ordained over his 
little flock here, and our countryman Mr. Ogburn, in the same 
house ; to which number I expect in ten days will be added Mr. 
and Mrs. Sewall from Bristol. This place is a watering place, re- 
sorted to by the neighboring gentry. Having bought a pony, I 
make frequent excursions into the country hereabouts, passing my 
time as agreeably as the untoward circumstances of ray affairs al- 
low. Should I not be happy enough to enlarge my party, I in- 
tend to make a ten days' ramble through Cornwall with my friend 
Dr. Smith, who has become an inhabitant, and may continue to be 
for some years. 

Should that report induce Mr. Erying's retreating to your 



1778.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 195 

quarters, and you continue where you are, I may pass a month 
with you before winter. 

Yours truly, 

S. CURWEN. 

July 1. With Messrs. Smith and Ogburn rode to Honiton, 
to see the annual procession of lace-raakers; alighted at the 
Golden Lion, and was soon called over and invited to dine at a 
Mrs. Youat's, whose daughter is presidentess of this society, in num- 
ber exceeding a hundred. They have an afternoon sermon, and 
afterwards walk in procession, in the following order : — the presi- 
dentess with a wand adorned with flowers; then four maidens, 
eight years old, with each a basket of flowers and large boquets, 
walking between two arches adorned with flowers ; then follow 
the patronesses, each with a white wand ; then the standard-bearer, 
followed by two dozen couple, with a standard-bearer attending 
them. In this order they paraded through the principal streets, 
and then adjourned to the Golden Lion inn to take tea and pass 
the evening in dancing and festivity. To this we were invited, but 
my occasions calling me to Exeter, and a want of relish for such 
mirth, concurred to send me off the ground before the street parade 
was over, leaving my companions to return home by moonlight. 
Lodged at the " Valiant Soldier," Exeter. 

Sidmouth, July 8. Rode to Hull-down to see the Exeter races. 
The cup with two hundred guineas won by Mr. Wildman's horse 
Lubin; sport indifferent. The dust and heat were insufferable, 
the numbers present supposed to be ten thousand. 

July 10. Judge Sewall visited us ; in the afternoon walked 
with him to Peak hill. 

July 14. Received a letter from Peter Frye, Esq., without 
mention of time or place. 

TO MR. JOHN TIMMINS, LONDON. 

Sidmouth, July 12, 1778. 
Dear Sir: 

I should be glad to see you at this bathing town of mud walls 
and thatched roofs. Judge Sewall and lady, Samuel Sewall, Mr. 
Smith, and Mr. Ogburn are here ; and at Exeter, fourteen miles 



196 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1778. 

off, are Col. Erving's family, Col. Vassall, Mr. Lechmere; and late 
Lieut. Governor Oliver is soon to be there. The advices from 
Boston discover a disposition I could scarce expect to hear. I 
presumed in this flourishing state of their affairs, none durst whisper 
a doubt of the omnipotency of the Congress, allied as they are to 
France. Very truly, 

S. CURWEN. 

TO MR. GEORGE RUSSELL. BRMINGHAM. 

Sidmouth, July 13, 1778. 
Dear Sir : 

Accept my warmest thanks for your kind solicitude about my 
health, which is but in an ill state ; having a few days since re- 
ceived a shock of the kind which confined me last winter, and 
nearly translated me to another, or rather no state of existence. 
Don't let this expression hurt you ; I mean not a doubt of a future 
state, but whether the soul does not remain inactive during its 
separation from the body, and until roused by the last trumpet to 
life and activity, is a doctrine I cannot entirely disprove ; but no 
more of principles. My mind is as easy, submissive and resigned, 
as a conviction that the divine conduct is right can make it ; to 
aid which, I muster up all my religion and philosophy, some- 
times with success ; sometimes nature oppressed sinks under the 
burden. 

Having proposed in my answer to follow the order of your 
letter, I come to a tender point, the condition of the amiable and 
worthy partner of your sou), for whom I feel more than a common 
friend's affection and regard ; you have my earnest prayers that 
her life may be continued till it shall cease to be a blessing ; nor 
can our fondest wishes, guided by reason, extend further. The 
vicissitudes daily taking place should be daily lessons to teach us 
the vanity of too fondly expecting felicity from flattering, transitory 
circumstances here below. Should it please the sovereign disposer 
of life to deprive you of your dearest friend, may you experience 
all the advantages that religion and true philosophy afford ; as I 
doubt not you view the evils of life with too religious an eye not 
to consider every event, however irksome at present, as capable of 
yielding the most solid, pure, and lasting comfort in the final issue. 



1778.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 197 

This day I received a letter from an old friend, now in banishment 
with his wife and children at Halifax, conceived in the common 
plaintive strain with all letters from that quarter ; complaining of 
the spiritless measures of administration and their military servants. 
In truth, vigor and activity seem not the characteristic of this 
nation at this period ; the continued series of untoward events on 
the side of Great Britain, in this unnatural contest between her 
and the colonies, has, I fear, given the conp de grace to her glory. 
The sun of Britain is past the meridian and declining fast to the 
west, and America is for ever emancipated from the legislative 
authority of this once potent empire ; alas ! no more so. The pro- 
phetic falling off of the best jewel from our king's crown when on 
his head at coronation, is now accomplished by the loss of America, 
which I consider irrevocably gone ; whether to their advantage, 
is a point, I fancy, the Congress and I should not join issue in : — 
the burden of supporting an independency with dignity is too heavy 
for America to bear, especially the northern colonies, unless the 
patriots there will discharge the troublesome public trusts and 
offices without pecuniary emoluments ; requiring a much greater 
degree of virtue, self-denial, and public spirit, than I Ihink now 
does or indeed ever did exist there, unless in profession. 

I fancy by this time I have tired my friend in reading, as I 
confess I have myself in writing, and conclude by wishing he may 
live long, and see many prosperous days. 

Your affectionate friend, 

S. CURWEN. 

July 15. Went off with Mr. Withers in his phaeton, accom- 
panied by Messrs. Smith, Jarvis and Meservale, to Beer j dined at 
King's Head ; afternoon, were rowed a league out, and remained 
out two hours. 



198 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1778. 



CHAPTER X. 

Sidmouth, July 17. Set off alone on an excursion to the west ; 
at nine o'clock passing over Peak hill, through Otterton, and over 
Welbry common ; ray first stage at Mr. Withers', Lyrapston, inten- 
tionally to persuade him to accompany me toTeignmouth, agreeably 
to a vague promise from him the preceding day. He was gone to 
Exeter. I then proceeded through Star Cross and Dawlish Sands ; 
on the other side of the beach is an extensive sea and land view ; 
from hence is about four miles to Teignmouth, where arrived at 
six o'clock at Globe inn, facing the sands and beach. This is a 
bathing town, and resorted to by more, and company of higher rank 
than Sidmouth can boast. It is irregularly built, but the houses 
more in number and of incomparably better appearance. The 
beach for bathing lies at some distance from the town. Lodged 
here. 

July 18. Rose early, took the road to Newton Bushel, distant 
six miles, through Bishop Stanton, passing also through King's 
Stanton. Newton has three hundred houses, decently built ; shops 
of almost every kind of goods, streets paved, two Episcopal and 
one Presbyterian church. Breakfasted and soon set off, passing at 
half a mile distant an old fashioned seat called Ford, belonging to 
Lord Courtenay, in whose manor this town lies. From hence to 
Dartmouth, lying sixteen miles distant ; the land in the approaches 
thereto hilly and uneven, but all improved ; at three alighted at 
a Mrs. Quick's, in a place called Kingsware ; this is a cluster of 
houses on the hither side of the river Dart, where the harbor pilots 
dwell, and has an Episcopal church. Ferried over much the 
width of Charlestown ferry, about half a mile within the extreme 
points of the harbor. 

Dartmouth, July 20. At twelve A. M. departed for Torbay, 
five miles distant ; an ugly town, houses low, and for the greater 
part slovenly in appearance ; among them, however, a few decent 
ones. The lower point adjoining the quay occupied by those who 



1778.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 199 

depend on the hook and hne ; here being no fewer than fourscore 
boats daily employed in that service, all with a mast and sail, and 
four to two tons burthen. They supply Exeter, Bath, Bristol, etc., 
quite across the country nearly a hundred miles north from them. 
Dined at George inn, and took leave of Brixholm. Thence to 
Barry Pomeroy, an estate of the Duke of Somerset, the house large, 
but avenues in a neglected state ; magnificent edifices and expan- 
sive pleasure grounds seem not to be this duke's taste, or a scanty 
purse restrains it. Hence to Bridgtown, contained in the parish of 
Barry Pomeroy and part of the manor of the same name, within 
which I was told Totness stands. The duke derives from his 
estate here two thousand pounds yearly. Totness is a corporation 
and a parliamentary borough ; is remarkable for the singularity of 
its address to the first George of the Brunswick line at his accession 
to the throne of these kingdoms ; after the usual flattery, such as is 
always paid to a new race of princes, they oflfered his majesty 
sixteen shillings in the pound of their estates, and the other four if 
he should want it, as a proof of their loyalty. 

July 21. Arose at seven o'clock, mounted my horse, rode to 
Newton, before mentioned ; stopped there for a night. 

July 22. After breakfast departed for Chudleigh, but missing 
the road, passed over Hull-down, leading to Dawlish, and arrived 
at one o'clock at Exeter ; Mr. Erving happening in sight, urged 
my driving with him. 

Exeter, July 24. After visiting my old acquaintances, returned 
to Sidmourh by eight o'clock, evening. 

Sidmouth, July 26. Met Mr. George Eveleigh, a gentleman of 
South Carolina, educated both at school and college at Cambridge, 
New England, whom I rem.ember a school-boy when I was in col- 
lege ; now the father of five grown up children. 

TO MR. JOHN TIMMINS, LONDON. 

Sidmouth, July 28, 1778. 
Dear Sir : 

Please let me know whether you have received any late ad- 
vices from Boston or New England, by which you are informed of 
the situation of the country, respecting its political, civil, or religious 
condition ; the temper and disposition of its inhabitants respecting 



200 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1778. 

those who have left the country ; their inclinations or ability to 
continue the war. Would that the execrable spirit of persecution 
might abate, they be restored to reason, and I to my native coun- 
try ; an event I ardently long for : indeed, I sometimes feel resolu- 
tion enough to attempt to go and throw myself on the mercy of 
those whom party rage has rendered almost insensible to the ten- 
der feelings of humanity ; but fear, and a settled aversion to their 
levelling principles and persecuting practices, disarms me. 

With truth, your friend, 

S. CURWEN. 

Jiugust 16. News received that Congress has rejected any 
treaty with the British commissioners ; as might easily have been, 
and was, I believe, fully imagined by all the world would be the 
case at this late period, without an express specific acknowledg- 
ment of their independency. 

Axminster, August 18. W^alked to beach ; seven bathing 
machines standing there, dragged into the water by a horse each. 
The alcove and ball room larger and more respectable than at Sid- 
mouth. 

TO MR. JOHN TIMxMINS, LONDON, 

Sidmouth, August 31, 1778. 
Dear Sir : 

The dangerous, distrustful situation the nation is in, makes me 
tremble for the next news from abroad, lest it shake the government 
to its centre. In the annals of this country, I know of no period in 
which England stood on a narrower point; not in 1688, nor even 
when the Scotch rebels had penetrated as far as Derby, in 1745. 
The designs of Providence are inscrutable, not to be controlled by 
human policy, nor defeated by human strength. 

Although I have, all along, doubted that Congress would ac- 
cept terms short of independence, I confess myself not a little 
deranged at the confirmation of it. That Congress should be loth 
to quit their authority, is not to be wondered at, for it is the nature 
of power to endeavor to preserve itself; but I cannot help flatter- 
ing myself with hopes that America will soon see her interest in a 
different point of light from Congress, and disappoint the ambitious 



1778.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 201 

views of men, however well qualified they may be to govern, evi- 
dently disposed to sacrifice that country's happiness to their lust of 
power. God only knows what will be the issue of the troubles ; 
may it please him to save her from ruin, and accomplish a happy 
re-union with this, and on a lasting basis. 

Your assured friend, 

S. CURWEN. 

Sept. 11. Keppel's and Byron's fleets are sources of incredible 
reports from street and tavern politicians ; should both these sea 
commanders be defeated, none knows the consequences — fatal ones 
may be justly apprehended ; this country was never in a more 
perilous situation. 

Sept. 21. The day of our half-yearly fair; great numbers- 
came in, passing on the beach to view the sea, going off in boats,, 
eating, drinking and buying, in the sheds and booths erected on the 
lower parts of the streets, and filled with confectionary, toys, hard- 
ware, ribbons, etc. Rode to Exeter in the evening. 

Sept. 28. Departed on horseback, accompanied by Mr. Smith, 
on an intended ramble to Weymouth and Portland. First stage to 
Colyton, nine miles, where we dined. Hence to Charmouth_, a 
straggling town that extends from the top to the bottom of a long 
hill, and contains one street of perhaps a hundred, houses ; passing 
through, we arrived at a villa, two miles distant, part of the man- 
or of the Earl of Arundel, a Roman Catholic peer, of which per- 
suasion most of the inhabitants on his lordship's estate here are. 
The next cluster of houses on the road was Morkara's lake, which 
with the former scarce make up a hundred houses. Our next and 
last stage for this day Bridport, at the Bull inn, where we supped 
and lodged. 

Sept. 29. Left for Abbotsbury, ten miles distant ] the land 
along the sea-shore a desert, not so much as a tree, shrub or bush 
was to be seen. Passed through Weymouth to Melcomb Regis, 
over bridge laid across the Wey, so called, being a small arm of the 
sea, dividing these two towns. The latter lying on the land side, is 
a neck formed by the bend, almost at right angles with the river 
Wey, and is the place whereon the beach lies and visitors reside. 
The market is large and better supplied than in the former.. 

26 



202 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1778. 

There is a range of brick buildings, twelve in number, tasty and 
commodious, facing the beach, and but a small distance above it ; 
at the end is an elegant assembly-room, and at a small distance 
are shops of all kinds of articles, miUinery, toys, etc. Coffee-houses, 
circulating libraries, etc. The beach is furnished with twenty- 
two machines for bathing, in finer taste than any I have seen. This 
town, like Weymouth, is concerned in shipping ; its quay is long 
enough for sixty vessels ; not half that number then in port. It 
has two Episcopal churches and a Presbyterian meeting-house. 
Weymouth is on the outer or south side of the river, consisting 
principally of one street, well paved, but narrow. In front of the 
town is a quay, facing Melcomb, filled with vessels. After dining, 
we sallied forth ; finding nothing further to entertain us, soon re- 
turned, and ordering forth our horses, took our departure towards 
Portland, the last stage. The passage to it is over a water called 
the Fle.et, between a beach seven miles in length and the main 
land ; by this beach Portland is joined to the main, but the way 
is scarce ever attempted, consisting of small loose stones or deep 
sand, so that a horse would sink down half-leg deep ; this approach, 
therefore, must be too tedious to be used. The road from Mel- 
comb to the island or peninsula is over a lofty plain of a mile in 
length ; from hence is a hard gravel beach of over a mile : and 
opposite the road stands an edifice in ruins, styled a castle, having 
however more the look of a mansion house deserted by its own- 
er, its solitary black site rendering it an uncomfortable residence. 
We soon measured the beach, and were wafted over the Fleet 
by a rope-ferry, as it is called in New England dialect. But the 
beach on the Portland side, of a mile and a half, required a more 
leisurely pace. The first village on the island of Portland is called 
Chesilton, of about a hundred houses of reputable aspect ; — situation 
low, on the plain of a beach ; from hence, being an easy ascent of 
half a mile, we came to two villages. 

In the morning (30th), climbed up the lofty plain to the spot the 
flag-staff is erected on, being the northernmost summit, having the 
castle situate at the northern exetremity, from which may be seen 
at one view as far into the English channel as eye can reach ; to 
Isle of Wight in the east, and to the north a vast extent of country. 
Portland island is about five miles in length, breadth two ; on the land 



1778.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 203 

side it is defended by a castle before mentioned. On the southern 
cliffs are two light-houses. Mounted our horses, and in our course lay, 
in the middle road, the first village, called Reffon, which contains 
the only church on the island, encompassed by stone wall, inclosing 
an acre of yard. Passed through Ishwell, Wikeham, Eison, Wes- 
ton, and returned to the rope-ferry by which we came to the island, 
and at one o'clock arrived at Crown inn, Melcomb. Thence through 
Upway, situated in a fertile vale, abounding in trees and hedges. The 
next village, lying a little out of our way, is Winterborne Monkton ; 
the latter epithet I suppose denotes for what it was remarkable. 
Through this village we passed to Maiden Castle, a famous en- 
campment of Roman construction, supposed to have been built by 
them soon after their first invasion. In their times Dorchester, two 
miles distant, was their winter, as this spot was their summer resi- 
dence. It is said to be the only remains of the kind in Great 
Britain — form oval ; contains within the inner intrenchment many 
acres, enough to hold three legions or eighteen thousand men. The 
intrenchments entire, four without the other at each end — two on 
each side or flank, encompassing the whole — depth thirty feet. It 
has a stupendous appearance, and looks like a work of a people 
capable of any undertaking, however difficult. Thence we jogged 
on to Dorchester. 

Dorchester, Oct. 1. Rambled over the town : here are assize 
and session- house, prison and bridewell; about 2500 inhabitants; 
houses decent, and streets paved. Avenues to the town pleasant 
at all quarters, being lined with a row of trees on each side for 
two miles ; from hence at ten o'clock we departed, shaping our 
course towards the remains of Roman antiquity, the occasion of our 
coming hither ; and in half an hour arrived at the amphitheatre, 
which is entirely of earth ; the forms whereon the benches were 
laid for spectators are yet entire. The outer line an oval, the earth 
thrown up in the manner of an encampment, and about twenty 
feet high, encompassing the whole; the area or space wherein 
spectacles were exhibited, measures forty or fifty yards longest 
diameter; two rows of benches, judged spacious enough to hold 
two thousand spectators. Having satisfied curiosity, proceeded 
through fields for the castle, lying on a lofty ridge at about a mile 
and a half further. Having finished our survey, and amused our- 



204 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1778. 

selves with fine prospects, we ascended by another quarter to the 
fields and inclosures adjoining hereto ; crossing which, at length 
reached turnpike at a village called Martinston, from hence to 
Winterburn-Stepleton and Clenston ; here we met the great 
London road to Plymouth and the west ; glad once again to salute 
it and forsake the cross-roads that are but indifferent at best, and 
some execrable ; in this we kept till arrival at first and last stage 
of this day, alighting in about two hours at Bull inn, Bridport, 
distant from Dorchester seventeen miles. The business for which 
this town is famed, and carried on to great extent, is in sail-cloth 
and white cordage ; in size little inferior to Dorset. 

Bridport, Oct. 2. To Axrainster, Honiton, and Wishcombe, 
where lodged. 

Oct. 3. Alighted at Mrs. Godfrey's, my new lodging-house in 
Sidmouth. 

Sidmouth, Oct. 10. Spirit of privateering against France sur- 
prisingly raised ; success incredible : three East India ships home- 
ward bound taken, and thirty-six St. Domingo and Martinico ships, 
and a multitude of others. 

Oct. 26. Accompanied Mr. Smith to Mr. William Lloyd's, at 
Otterton, a substantial farmer. In conversation on different ranks 
of mankind, and different consequent mode of living, my companion 
told us the following tale from an Irish lady. A young country- 
woman of hers wislied she might be queen for a month, for then, 
said she, I would have bacon with my broth. To which our hostess 
added one of the like kind: a young lad of Cornwall wished he 
might be king, for then, said he, I would ride on gates and eat fat 
bacon with my broth. The demands of nature are few and easily 
satisfied ; it is education and use that increase our appetites and 
render them troublesome. 

Oct. 27. Evening Mr. Smith visited me. Our sentiments 
on toleration differ ; he holds that every subject in a state has an 
absolute right to unlimited toleration, be his principles what they 
may. I think no man should be persecuted for opinion's sake, yet 
he has no right to complain of any disabilities he may be under, 
whose avowed persuasion is, that faith is not to be kept with those 
whose religious tenets differ from his own, whose religion absolves 
him from most solemn engagements, nay, who thinks himself in con- 



1778.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 205 

science bound to violate promises, vows and oaths ; nay, further, 
thinks it highly meritorious to disturb the peace and overthrow the 
very government he has sworn to support, when his priest directs 
and opportunity presents. Opinions, merely such, the magistrate 
ought by no means to concern himself with, nor be subject to his 
control ; and therefore every peaceable man has an equal claim to 
his protection in his person and propei ty. 

By letters from Lord Cornwalhs at New-York, it appears Count 
D'Estaing had been obliged hastily to retreat with his squadron 
from Rhode Island by the arrival of Lord Howe, with twenty line- 
of-battle ships and twenty frigates ; that a severe storm parted 
the fleets; that the Americans by a bridge of boats had landed 
twelve thousand men on the island, and that General Clinton had 
strengthened his garrison by several detachments he himself had 
brought from New-York ; that Gen. Lee, being accused of cow- 
ardice and bad conduct, w^as suspended by a court martial. 

Oct. 28. Lord Howe has arrived from Rhode Island in the 
Eagle. Four of our frigates have been sunk at Rhode Island, when 
invested by D'Estaing and the Provincials ; also twenty -three ships 
destroyed. 

The Bostonians are said to be out of humor with their new 
friends and allies, and no wonder ; French government, laws, 
religion, manners, and policy, are totally alien and unnatural to 
Americans, and will sit uneasy till custom and long use have fa- 
miliarized them. 

JVbv. 17. Rode to Beer with Mr. Smith ; visited the vicar of 
Seaton and Beer, a character truly original -, a great humorist and 
punster, not unlike Rev. Mather Byles of Boston in that line. He 
is of enormous bulk, confined by gout, which he told us was his 
third attack, resembling, in his own language, a furnace heated 
seven times hotter than the former ; compared himself, in the midst 
of excruciating pains, to his holiness seated to receive adoration in 
his sanctified chair ; treated us hospitably, and was very facetious. 

Jfov. 23. Took my leave of Sidmouth, ray residence for ap- 
proaching winter being to be at Exeter ; passed the road in two 
hours and a half, and sat down at new lodgings in Fore-street, near 
East-gate. 

Exeter, JYov. 26. With Mr. Smith road to Newton Abbot to 



206 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [ 1778. 

visit a Capt. Hendley, returned from Newfoundland, taken Ly Capt. 
Babson and carried into Boston, where and at Cape Ann he resided 
six weeks. He reports that the country is in a distressed condition, 
wanting almost every comfort j no trade but privateering, by which 
some have been raised from nothing to affluence : says the inhabi- 
tants are embittered against the French, who have engrossed all 
the trade, from whom they do not in return receive any advantage 
of labor or supplies, but their own goods at exorbitant prices. 
Wretched effects of civil discord ! How deplorable is the situation, 
how wretched the prospects of that once happy region, which se- 
curity, peace and plenty have of late abandoned, 

December 4. Visited my venerable and reverend friend, Mr. 
Towgood ; he is one of very few to whose respectful and undis- 
sembled welcome I am not a little indebted ; to whom my grateful 
acknowledgments are due. The river Exe, by late rains swelled 
beyond the memory of forty years, has caused great damage. The 
two islands lying within the banks of the river over against this 
city, overflown; on them are tucks for drying woollen cloths 
that are dyed and pressed in the city. 

December 16. Attended for the first time Arden's course of 
lectures on experimental philosophy, being the second of the course, 
held in a chamber in the castle ; more than threescore present, and 
continued two hours : subject, electricity. 

December 21. Received a letter from Judge Sewall, full as 
usual of humor and hopes. 

FROM HON. J. SEWALL. 

Bristol, December 18, 1778. 
Dear Sir : 

Till I had the pleasure of receiving your favor of the 1st inst., 
I was as much at a loss from what part of this or any other globe 
I should hear of you, as I was with respect to a certain com- 
mander-in-chief, when, to use the words of a friend in a late letter 
from New-York, " after having proceeded up the Delaware within 
twenty miles of Philadelphia, his place of destination, when a 
looker-on would say they must (from the reason and nature of 
things)landat Wilmington, instead of which he sees them tack about 



1778.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 207 

— away they come — down the river again — huzza — make a circle 
round Asspeak, up Chesapeake, and after travelling in the heat of 
the season, in a hell of a climate, over a monstrous extent of coun- 
try, they arrive at Philadelphia — ' the army in high spirits.^ " 
Don't you think my friend's description is truly Shandean ? How- 
ever, matters I hope are mending; the account you give me from 
America, seems to be confirmed from all quarters. Judge Howard 
is lately arrived here from New-York ; he tells me that a number 
of gentlemen of influence and property, who have been lying on 
their oars to see which way the game would finally go, as I sup- 
pose, have lately come in, among whom is the famous iVIr. Smith, 
the lawyer f that they, together with Mr. Galloway, are unani- 
mously of opinion, that from the unexpected tyranny of the Congress 
and their sub-devils, the almost universal poverty and distress of 
the people, and the general aversion to French connections, the 
quondam union of the thirteen states is upon the point of dissolution, 
and that nothing is wanting but a single effort to crush the rebel- 
lion, root and branch. Judge Hov^ard says he heard Smith say, 
" if Great Britain don't conquer the colonies, it can only be because 
she wont ;" that these gentlemen have been much with the com- 
missioners, by whom they have been greatly attended to. With 
these favorable accounts from America, I can't help connecting 
the union that appears in parliament, respecting the grand point, 
the reduction of the colonies ; for though the opposition to ministry 
is still faintly kept up for form's sake, yet the language is so differ- 
ent from that held in former sessions, that I can't help thinking a 
sense of public danger, and a regard to national interest and honor, 
begin to prevail over private resentments. From all these appear- 
ances, I augur well ; and I am happy in finding the general opinion 
among my friends and acquaintances is, that the prospect of a 
speedy and happy suppression of the rebellion is fairer now than it 
ever has been. Come, my dear friend, cheer up ; don't think of 
going to that " country from whose bourne no traveller returns," 
though there be no sin or sorrow, before you have seen a happy 
end to the sorrows and sins of your country. It will be such glo- 

* The historian of New-York, and chief justice during the war . subse. 
quently of Canada. 



208 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1778. 

rious news to carry with you, that it is well worth waiting patiently 
for many years ; but I hope you will have it in one year ; and then, 
I doubt not, you wull find yourself more able to combat the unavoid- 
able, evils of tills state militant, and be less in a hurry to set out for 
that unknown country, which must be your next stage. 

The situation of American loyalists, I confess, is enough to have 
provoked Job's wife, if not Job himself; but still we must be men, 
philosophers, and Christians ; and bearing up with patience, resig- 
nation and fortitude, against unavoidable sufferings, is our duty in 
each of these characters. 

There, sir, is a Roland for your Oliver, in the serious way. 
My friends and family here are all well, and wish your health and 
happiness. If you see ray good friend the doctor before he receives a 
letter from me, present him my best respects. 

Adieu, 

J. Sewall. 

TO HON. WILLIAM BROWNE, COWBRIDGE, WALES. 

Exeter, Dec. 26, 1778. 
Dear Sir : 

I have often in fancy, whilst reading a letter from a friend, 
transported myself into his presence, and considered myself as at- 
tending to his personal conversation, thereby increasing my own 
enjoyment. This curious effect may perhaps be peculiar to me j 
however, I am pleasing myself that my friend Col. Browne, 
although not apt to be carried into the regions of fancy, may on 
occasion be capable of an innocent delusion of this kind. 

Without further preface, my chief intention in this scrawl is to 
amuse this dark gloomy season with the recital of a few circum- 
stances relative to our own country that were told me by Capt. 
Hendley, who was taken into Boston by an American privateer, 
and passed six weeks there and at Cape Ann. The inhabitants, 
he said, seemed discontented, and would gladly exchange their un- 
happy condition for peace and a connection with their old friends, 
could a constitutional line be drawn, and America be thereby freed 
from the future attacks of administration. That they are dissatis- 
fied with their new allies, against whom there are great heart- 
burnings ; that all commerce is in the hands of the French, and 



1778.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 209 

commodities held at an unreasonable height ; not a store belonging 
to the inhabitants contains any European goods, all being in the 
hands of the French, for which they will receive nothing but 
money, taking in return no supplies from the Anglo-Americans, 
nor employing a laborer ; in short, that the French are not of the 
least advantage to them in any respect ; that privateering, the only 
resource of the merchants, is almost annihilated by the great shock 
the adventurers that way have received ; — that the European arti- 
cles of import are extremely wanted, and at an enormous price ; 
that the French are hated, and in turn they despise and oppress the 
inhabitants, between whom and themselves there are frequent quar- 
rels ; and one that lately made a noise in our papers here, which 
happened at Boston a few months since, was occasioned solely by 
the opposition of the natives to the French, no English soldier or 
sailor being then in town; that those who now rule the roast there 
are like a certain class of men mentioned in Scripture, taken from 
the lowest of the people, and too tenacious of their ill-acquired 
power and honors to part with them, or to suffer the least intima- 
tion of reconcilement with Great Britain : honors did I say ? — for a 
moment I forgot Addison's incontrovertible adage, 

" When vice prevails, 
The post of honor is a private station." 

I fear the measure of these men's folly is not yet quite full, but 
I am egregiously mistaken if they are not making hasty strides to 
their utter undoing. On advice of an order of the Congress for a 
valuation of estates, real and personal, through their extended do- 
mains, the Massachusetts Bay assembly incontestably, unanimously 
and promptly refused compliance, and despatched Mr. Hancock to 
Philadelphia with their determination and remonstrance. Their bills 
of credit, which at first emission passed at the rate of four and six- 
pence the dollar, had sunk to one and threepence, and passed 
current only by permission at one and sixpence. The houses in 
Boston and all along the coast are stripped of every article of fur- 
niture and valuable effects, save what is absolutely necessary for 
constant use, the inhabitants being in continued dread of a descent 
on the coast, which, indeed, they have but too probable grounds to 
apprehend. A passenger, lately fled from America on the score of 
sufferings there, declares the late menace in the commissioners" 

27 



210 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1778. 

proclamation will assuredly effect what neither persuasions nor 
threats have yet had force enough to bring about, a solid and 
firm union of all ranks and classes, for want of which alone in the 
middle colonies, he says, the British army has not, long since, been 
driven into the sea. The manifesto, which I presume you have 
seen, issued by the Congress in consequence of that proclamation, 
renders it more than probable that should the dreadful expedient 
threatened take place, history will hardly furnish a parallel to the 
cruelty and carnage of the following campaign, which God in his 
infinite mercy prevent. I presume, before receipt of this, you will 
have seen the account oi Lords Cornwallis and Carlisle's return to 
Great Britain, and the shattered condition of Byron's fleet, on which 
was placed such confidence and dependence, having sustained a 
loss, it is to be feared, of several capital ships. The almost unin- 
terrupted series of untoward events and curious accidents which 
have befallen this people since the commencement of these mutual 
confusions and strifes, has not seldom reminded me of a passage in 
the song of Deborah and Barak ; I wish for form's sake I could 
recollect our New England version ; " Fhey fought from heaven, 
the stars in their courses fought against Sisera." This text is not 
quoted by way of comparison ; I would not have you suppose that 
I mean to compare the hosts of Sisera to the British army, for in 
truth I do not think the Americans to be the chosen people of God, 
or their armies the armies of the living God, though they have 
only and simply Deo auspice for their motto on their bills and 
standards. I should have finished the above by adding somewhat 
of a more cheerful strain, but having finished my sheet must con- 
clude with affectionate regards to Mrs. Browne, your son and self. 

S. CURWEN. 

Dec. 25. There have been twenty-eight king's ships, priva- 
teers and letters of marque carried into Brest, from 20th ult. to 
10th inst. ; a very respectable number, truly, considering the Eng- 
lish are lords of the ocean ! Of the twenty-eight bishops only four 
voted to adopt the new mode of carrying on the war by spreading 
carnage and desolation through America, as decreed in the com- 
missioners' proclamation. Whatever excuses or reasons politicians 
may assign for extending or securing temporal dominion by such 



JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 211 

cut-throat measures, these four servants of the meek and lowly 
Jesus have exhibited a spirit that she uld through the duration of 
time render them infamous, and their names and memory proverbi- 
ally detestable. In the papers received to-day appears a mani- 
festo of Congress in answer to the commissioners' proclamation, 
announcing a retaliation of like measures. 

Dec. 28. This day I am arrived at ray grand climacteric, hav- 
ing just completed my sixty-third year : with more propriety than 
old Jacob may I say, '■^few and evil have been the days of the years 
of my life." For what I am reserved, is known to God only ; many 
have been my deliverances, many the deaths I have been rescued 
from. May ray remaining days be employed to more valuable pur- 
poses, and to ray own real honor and advantage, teraporal and 
eternal. Visiied by Mr. George Eveleigh, with whora and family 
I have an agreeable acquaintance. He was one of the first couple 
my old friend Mr. McGilchrist married in South Carolina, the cere- 
mony performed at Wands in Christ Church parish. He was ed- 
ucated at Harvard College, and boarded with President Wads- 
worth ; at first sight of me at Bristol two years ago, he recognized 
my narae and person; having been at school in Cambridge while 
I was a student in college. 



212 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1779. 



CHAPTER XI. 

Exeter, Jan. 1, 1779. A delightful day ; visited Mr. Eveleigh, 
and by invitation passed the afternoon and evening there. Why 
should presents be made upon the first day of January more than 
at any other time 1 The original of this custom is attributed to 
the reign of Romulus, and Tatius king of the Sabines, who gov- 
erned jointly in Rome in the seventh year of the city. It is said 
that Tatius, having been presented on the first of January with 
some boughs out of the forest of the goddess Strenia in token of 
good luck, began this custom, and called the present strena. The 
Romans made this a holiday, and consecrated it to the honor of 
Janus, offering sacrifices to him ; and the people went in throngs 
to Mount Tarpeia, where Janus had an altar clothed anew, and 
chose to begin their respective employments on this day. They 
wished one another good luck, and were very careful not to speak 
any thing ill-natured or quarrelsome. The common presents among 
the meaner sort were dates, figs and honey, which were usually 
covered with leaf gold : and those who were under the protection 
of great men used to add a piece of money. In the reign of Au- 
gustus, the populace, gentry and senators used to send him new- 
year's gifts, and if he was not in town, they carried them to the 
capitol. From the Romans this custom went to the Greeks, and 
from the heathens to the Christians, who early came into the prac- 
tice of making presents to the magistrates. Some of the fathers 
write strenuously against this practice on account of the immorali- 
ties committed under the cover of protection : — but since the gov- 
ernments of the several nations of Europe have become Christian- 
ized, the custom is still retained as a token of friendship, love and 
respect. 

TO MR. JOHN TIMMINS, LONDON. 

Exeter, Jan. 17, 1779. 
Dear Sir : 

Inability to provide for one's own support is a mortifying con- 
sideration that embitters almost every circumstance of life. Once 



1779.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 213 

I thought health with virtue and a competency a happy condition ; 
now I think otherwise ; experience has taught me that more is ne- 
cessary to human happiness. Without something in pursuit, rightly 
or wrongly estimated worthy, life is insipid ; — a connection with 
my fellow men, constant employment, and a much less sum would 
render me more pleased with the world and myself, than the sup- 
plies I receive whilst I dream the blank of life along, unknowing 
and unknown. Did I know how to emancipate myself from this 
tediously uniform state of little more than mere animal life, not an 
hour should pass before I would fly to any quarter of the habitable 
earth to accomplish it. My past inactive state often reminds me of 
a Latin adage, ^^fruges consumere natus," a reproach I can but ill 
brook. Man by the kind intention of his Creator was formed for 
useful action ; selfish ease, indulgence and repose injures both body 
and mind ; the former without exercise cannot maintain its health 
and strength, nor will the latter, if unemployed on laudable, wor- 
thy objects, refuse to stoop to base ones, or destroy its vigor for 
want of exertion, or by sensual indulgence. 

Your mention of the proscription act in your letter I fancy I 
did not understand, never having seen any names inserted in any 
act ; if you mean that lately in our newspapers wherein the refu- 
gees are forbidden under penalty of transportation to return, and 
threatened with death in case of a second entrance within the Uni- 
ted States, that I have seen, but none other of the kind. 

Yours, 

S. CURWEN. 

Jan. 23. The last " Remembrancer" contains a list of refugees 
banished by act of the Massachusetts government, specifying only 
lour out of the thirteen from Salem, viz., William Browne, Benja- 
min Pickman, John Prince, and John Sargent. The omission of 
my name affords no comfort, fearing it may operate disadvantage- 
ously here, being dependent on the bounty of the court. 

Jan. 30. This day is, in Church of England language, 
" Charles's martyrdom.'' Attended service ; Archdeacon Hull of 
Barnstaple, preached a furious, high-tory address to a thin audi- 
ence. 



214 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1779. 

TO REV. ISAAC SMITH, SIDMOUTH. 

Exeter, Feb. 1, 1779. 
Dear Sir : 

I hope your New England toryism will not end in English ja- 
cobinism, as your letter seems to indicate. Curiosity led me last 
night to the cathedral, where, if you are a real believer that those 
sufferings of the pretended martyr were undeserved, your ears 
would have been charmed with Archdeacon Hull's encomium on 
him, and your liberal breast fired with indignant rage at his cruel 
persecutors. But really, when I see the solemn mockery of a pul- 
pit clothed in black, the staves of the city officers covered with the 
same grim color, no music in the service of the day, which gener- 
ally constitutes so essential a part of Christian worship ; God most 
earnestly entreated not to lay this miscalled murder to the charge 
of the nation, or to require his blood at their hands, who, to com- 
pass his own tyrannous purposes, would have involved (and really 
did as far as in him lay) this island and Ireland in confusion, car- 
nage and desolation ; and further that nothing less than the blood 
of the Son of God can expiate this (in the Church language) inhu- 
man and execrable (but I durst affirm justly deserved) murder, I 
cannot fail to wish government would lay aside a service which 
insults common sense, is a mere religious grimace, and which all 
liberal minds justly despise. Were you to have seen the pitiful and 
thin company, you would have wagered odds that they were har- 
dened wretches, and went merely to save appearances. 

I thank you for the mention of my name to your father, which, 
if I judge from former experience, will be productive of no very 
comfortable effects to me ; my friends having, I fear, adhered to the 
notion that my departure was an intentional and full adieu. The 
omission of my name in the banishment act I fear will prove inju- 
rious to me here. That your father makes no mention of govern- 
ment or the temper of the people, I presume arises from his prudence 
and the surveillance of the rulers there, which is, I fancy, strict 
enough. 

Very affectionately, 

S. CuRWEN. 

Feb. 15. Evening walked with Mr. Eveleigh's family through 



1779.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 215 

Fore-street to see illumination on occasion of Admiral Keppel's 
acquittal by court martial on a charge of Sir Hugh Palliser ; the 
result is the highest approbation of his conduct. London has 
voted thanks for his bravery and the freedom of the city, and all 
large cities and towns are following the example. 

Feb. 20. James Russell on his way to Dartmouth, came here 
to inform me that it was debated in Massachusetts Assembly whe- 
ther my name should be inserted in the exclusion bill, and carried 
by a small majority in ray favor after a warm debate. 

TO REV. ISAAC SMITH, SIDMOUTH. 

Exefer, Feb. 19, 1779. 
Dear Sir : 

I presume I am to expect all that is worth hearing from Judge 
Sewall's letter to you. All well in Salem the last of December, so 
Mr. Russell informs me. Two or three persons, I am told, who 
had not money enough for shoes for their feet, are now riding in 
coaches of their own in Boston. Solomon says, " I have seen ser- 
vants on horseback and princes walking on foot;" I really think 
the royal preacher was a prophet, and pointed at the events of our 
day ; at least the present state of English America verifies the 
remark. 

Though the general election be not for these two years, a can- 
vass for votes has begun already. Rolle against Baring and Chol- 
wich, who have combined with the church and chambers. I have 
seen one instance and heard of another of such gross condescen- 
sion, that it has given me a thorough dislike to parliamentary can- 
vassing, and manifests the pitiful notions of a nation's honor, virtue 
and regard to public interest, which no man of common sense and 
real integrity, and not poisoned by corrupt principles and practices 
of the times, can stoop to, and which nothing but sinister, selfish 
views can digest and submit to. Men of recluse lives only, such as 
monks and speculative system makers, vent their spleen on the man- 
ners, customs, principles and practices of their day, and call their 
times the dregs and refuse. I will therefore suppose it always 
was, and ever will be the case, with ambitious men, to use the 
same low arts and base flattering compliances to gain their selfish 
ends; be it so, it is still unworthy conduct. God forbid that 



216 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1779. 

wealth, power and influence achieved by such means as reason 
condemns and honor despises, shall ever be in my possession. The 
nearer I approach the verge of life, the juster I fancy my notions 
are, and if indeed they shall prove so, I hope to be finally rid of all 
essential errors before I put off this mortal coil and become an as- 
sociate of pure, refined, unembodied intelligences. 

Yours, etc., 

S. CURWEN. 

TO JONATHAN SEWALL, ESQ., BRISTOL. 

Exeter, March 6, 1779. 
Dear Sir : 

I delayed answering your last favor, in hopes to transmit you 
some little intelligence about our own country by means of a Salem 
captain, who was taken on his passage to Cadiz, and carried into 
Bristol, from whence he set off for London, and after a short abode 
passed over to France. His sudden flight from this land of toryism 
and tyranny has deprived me of wished and expected information 
respecting my family and friends, but instead of granting my re- 
quest signified in a letter I wrote, he did not think it consistent 
with the purity of his principles to correspond with a refugee, as 
he told Mr. Timmins. 

The banishment act, which party resentment dictated, will, like 
all overstrained penal measures, be its own destroyer, and the mali- 
cious designs of its promoters be frustrated by the very means em- 
ployed to manifest their venom and spite against the friends of law- 
ful government and the constitutional rights of their country ; nay, 
it was soon clamored against, and a noted brother counsellor of 
your honor's, whom you well know, of the doubtful or rather 
double gender, has publicly declared it to be a mad act, to which 
one may add, as ever disgraced tyranny itself. How unlike is the 
conduct of our countrymen, who, whilst contending or pretending 
to contend for civil liberty, are contriving and exciting, with the 
most rigorous severity, plans of oppression against many of their in- 
nocent fellow subjects, feeble and unarmed, merely for speculative 
opinions, to the disgrace of their pretensions — I say how unlike is 
this conduct to those generous Athenians who undertook the expul- 
sion of the thirty tyrants that had usurped the government of that 



1779.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 217 

city : themselves reinstated in the rank of citizens, their desires 
were gratified ; they did not persecute with everlasting hatred their 
enemies, but, determined not to yield to that slavery to which 
those had basely submitted, they invited them to share the freedom 
which themselves had so gloriously acquired. The above quota- 
tion, my worthy friend will candidly suppose is only applied by 
way of illustration, not comparison, which, however, does not 
run on all fours, as the saying is. I was going to set down a few 
remarks on the present state of the nation as it appears to my view ; 
for the good of the nation, you know, in which each individual's 
happiness is involved, is of too much importance to be neglected 
by any who wish well to their country ; but having made so many 
false judgments, and remembering the substance in a former favor, 
my courage fails, and I think it more prudent to keep my ideas in 
my own breast. There have been circulating, among some, curious 
and amusing enough inconsistencies relating to General Campbell 
in Georgia, from whose successful invasion multitudes augur the 
quick reduction of America, and have taken anticipatory possession 
of the remains of D'Estaing's fleet that the flames and sea have not 
devoured, w^ith Martinique and Guadaloupe. Unluckily the truth 
of one report dispels, in the minds of judicious people, the 
succeeding one, consigning it to forgetfulness, which I presume 
is pretty much the case with you, unless the privateering business 
engrosses the attention of your Bristol traders, which is not the case 
with us ; but little concern that way and a declining trade leave 
our commercial gentry time enough on their hands, now employed 
in the laudable purpose of talking and disputing for the honor of 
Keppel and the good of the nation. These political dabblers, to- 
gether with clergy and attornies, rendezvous at Mills' coffee- 
house, the mart of politics and scandal, and, I assure you, figure 
away as notably as Fielding's coflfee-house politicians, and are not 
altogether unequal to them. 

Having taken some pains, I hope you will be able to read the 
foregoing, notwithstanding the abbreviations, which, for despatch, 
I have used. 

I am your affectionate friend, 

S. CURWEN. 



28 



218 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1779. 

Exeter, March 17. Attended a trial at Common Pleas in the 
castle, Judges Hotham and Perryn ; evening, returning home met 
a large crowd hallooing, having blue cockades in their hats, with 
an old man at their head, and streamers flying at the end of long 
sticks; it proved a triumph for victory gained over the parish 
priest in a tithe case : — I am told it is a customary practice. 

^pril 2. Good Friday. Canon Moore preached at cathedral 
an excellent sermon, as his always are ; he is called Bishop Kep- 
pel's sermon- writer, as the latter is not considered a good writer. 

jipril 12. Went to deliver a letter to Mr. and Mrs. Erving, 
for Judge Sewall at Bristol, they being about to depart. 

TO DR. CHARLES RUSSELL, ANTIGUA. 

Exeter, April 2, 1779 
Dear Sir : 

You are now very near the intended seat of war ; may your lit- 
tle island be protected from Ine ravages of the enemy. As the 
events of war are doubtful, I promise myself no certain advantages 
from the junction of Admirals Byron and Barrington ', — shall think 
it no unfavorable campaign if we can retain our present posses- 
sions, expecting no conquests besides St. Lucia, the surrender of 
which, in sight of a superior French army and navy to British 
troops, does immortal honor to the victors' bravery and skill. The 
newspapers that are the mints of falsehood, are daily deceiving us 
with relations of great distress in the French islands, great dissatis- 
faction and heart-burnings between Daville, the governor of Mar- 
tinico, and D'Estaing ; that the latter has, with a disabled fleet and 
a scanty stock of provisions, been blocked up in Port Royal har- 
bor, Martinico ; but our newspaper fabricators have so many pur- 
poses to serve quite distinct from truth and the good of society, that 
I rarely put into my list of facts what for amusement only I read 
there. 

Five or six thousand new levies are designed for America ; our 
privateers have been successful against the East and West Indian 
French fleets, and the French have nearly balanced accounts by 
taking and destroying near twenty of our frigates, besides prizes, 
of which Lloyd's list presents us weekly with no contemptible 
numbers. 



1779.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 219 

The king's troops are in possession of Georgia, from which 
some augur the reduction of all America, but from what reason I 
cannot perceive ; one, two, or three colonies are but part of the 
confederacy, and there must be some capital defeat, I presume, to 
cool the ardor of minds so united as the Americans are at present. 
I remain your friend, etc., 

S. CURWEN. 

(The above inclosed to "William Cabot, London, to be deliv- 
ered into Samuel Quincy's hands, who is soon going off to Antigua 
as comptroller at Parkenbay.) 

May 10. Walked to Poltimore, the seat of the late Sir Rich- 
ard Bampfield, five miles out : — this miser for his penuriousness 
was called Tenpenny Dick, endeavoring to reduce laborers' day 
wages to that sum. It is an irregular old edifice, and its office, 
deserted by its owner, foreshows approaching ruin. Thf^ heir, 
whose name is Sir Charles Warwick Bampfield, is of so different 
a humor from the late miser, that, in the space of eighteen months 
he has puffed off sixty thousand pounds in cash, and an income from 
lands of eight thousand a year, so far as to require many years' 
mortgages, which the estate is now under, with an allowance of 
three hundred a year only. It is said his expenses during his par- 
oxysms of folly was thirty pounds an hour ; a sad instance of folly, 
thoughtlessness, extravagance, and compliance with the luxuri- 
ous taste and dissipation of the present age. 

May 13, Ascension Day. The limits of each parish surveyed 
by committees, a great number of boys attendant, carrying long 
slender white rods in their hands ; at certain intervals stopping and 
making loud huzzas. 

A British fleet of nearly five hundred sail remains wind-bound 
in Torbay under Admiral Arbuthnot, commanding over forty men- 
of-war. 

May 18. Byron's fleet, left in the West Indies, worsted by 
D'Estaing. By Lord Gower's (president of the council) own ac- 
knowledgment in the House of Lords, the nation is in a woful 
plight, and justly alarmed lest Spain should take part against us, 
as Count Almadava, their ambassador, intimated when he should 
leave : — in whicli case it is my belief we have every thing to fear, 



220 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1779. 

the combined fleets greatly exceeding ours. Ireland discontented 
and seemingly ready to join an invader ; Scotland uneasy ; muti- 
nies and discontent in the fleet, — distraction, etc., in councils. 

May 19. Col. Erving and family removing to Exmouth, by 
which I have lost one source of much enjoyment; — repeatedly 
pressed to reside in summer with them, which I have hitherto with- 
stood from a dislike to watering places. A fleet of sixteen ships 
of the line and ninety transports, it is reported, were seen steering 
towards Ireland -, should they land a general defection is to be feared. 

June 5. This day informed by Lord Clifford's priest, that I 
may have admittance to see his curiously wrought bed, presented 
by the old Duchess of Norfolk, said to be the richest in Europe, for 
which the queen has offered ten thousand pounds, and been refused. 
It is said there are four thousand Romish priests and fifteen hun- 
dred dissenting ministers of all persuasions in England and Wales. 
The former succeed in making converts. 

June 20. Yesterday Lord North announced in the House of 
Commons that the Spanish minister had left. 

June 23. It is said favorable news has arrived to govern- 
ment ; — what a pity that views and passions of mankind were not 
coincident with their real interest, enjoyment and felicity ; but, 
alas! they are at odds too frequently, — in the future world all 
wrongs will be rectified. 

June 28. Mr. John Sargent, my townsman, brought a letter 
from Col. Browne, at Cowbridge ; he proposes to abide with me 
five or six days. 

July 8. At Lympston, ordination of Mr. Jarvis's brother; met 
my friends Mr. Smith and John Sargent from Sidmouth. The actors 
were Sir H. Trelawney, Dr. Kippis, of London, and Dr. Priestley, 
who preached, and exhibited a picture of his own principles, deny- 
ing in express terms need of particular aids in all cases since 
Christ's appearance, being only necessary for the establishment of 
a religion ; — declaring man to be in a similar state respecting 
moral means as earth is in regard to seed put into it ; if it had 
been in a previous state of fitness for bringing forth, its product 
would be in proportion ; if otherwise, small or none at all. 

July 14. Spectators on cliffs amazed with the sight of the 
grand fleet sailing out of Torbay. 



1779.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 221 

Exmouth, July 18. Attended worship at Lady Glenorchy's 
chapel ; principles inculcated not unlike those at Lady Hunting- 
ton's chapel. The preacher a Scotchman, (with a master of arts 
gown,) a missionary of Lady G., who, with Mr. Holmes of Exeter, 
fitted this chapel for the propagation of Scotch orthodoxy. After- 
noon, at Withycomb-Raleigh parish, lying at the mouth of the 
river Exe ; the houses are chiefly low, with mud walls and thatched 
roofs; though there are a considerable number of brick, covered 
with slate, reputable and handsome, owned chiefly by Exeter 
people, who come down in shoals on Saturday afternoons for the 
purpose of pastime and festivity among themselves on Sundays ; — 
this being almost the only resort on that day, when the town is full 
of them, not, as I am told, to the emolument or wish of the inhabi- 
tants. 

July 22. Received a letter from Mr. Bretland, Exeter, inclosing 
a card left for me by Governor Hutchinson on his way to London 
from the west, whither he had been with C. Russell. 

^ug. 17. Visited by Mr. Smith and Samuel Sewall from Sid- 
mouth ; reported that the combined fleet of France and Spain are off 
Plymouth; people along the coast and through the country alarmed. 

^ug. 23. A levelling spirit has unhappily taken place among 
the lower classes ; menacing expressions ; they more than whisper 
their wishes that the French may land, adding they had as lief have 
a Louis as a George to reign over them. 

Exeter, Sept. 6. Am informed that I am suspected to be an ,; ,. 
American spy, disaffected to government ; this was reported by ( 
one Calhier, a violent hater of the inhabitants of the American ! 
continent and of all its friends and well-wishers : his malice I 
despise, and his power to injure me with government I defy. 
Exeter has become the seat of scandal, pride, inhospitality, foppery ; * 
an awkward imitation of London manners, to their folly, prevails. 

Sept. 23. Left in the coach for Bristol, passing through Wel- 
lington, Taunton, Bridgewater, and Cross, and arrived at White 
Hart inn, Bristol, where lodged. 

Sept. 24. Took lodgings at Mrs. Froade's, York-street, Bruns- 
wick-square. 



222 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1779. 

TO MR. GEORGE RUSSELL, BIRMINGHAM. 

Bristol, Sept. 28, 1779. 
Dear Sir : 

The alarming condition of public affairs of late has, I presume, 
engaged your attention, and that of every thoughtful man ; what 
remains for Great Britain to hope. I know not ; the causes of fear 
are too many and too obvious to pe the observation of the most 
thoughtless and inconsiderate. L is to be wished she may save at 
least a part of her foreign dominions ; which, if not secured by 
treaty before the following campaign, will, I fear, fall a sacrifice 
to the ambition of France and Spain, and the resentment of 
America ; notwithstanding the late successes of Sir George Collier, 
who has wounded the latter in the naval way, though not I believe 
essentially. To counterweigh this, I fear Sir James Wright, the 
late governor, despatched from hence to reassume the government 
of Georgia, whose sudden departure from thence to New-York, 
and General Provost's abandoning his troops at Beaufort, prove 
beyond a doubt the pitiful condition they were in, and the great 
probability of their falling a prey to Hopkins' squadron by sea, 
and the provincial arms by land. What a wretched conclusion of 
so hopeful a beginning, as it seems the royal army had at least in 
expectation when they first set forward in their expedition against 
Charleston ; which seems as if destined by Providence to bring 
disgrace on the British arms. 

I have just returned to this place with Colonel Erving's family, 
to whom I am indebtta for most of my happiness for more than a 
year at Sidmouth, Exeter, and last at Exmouth. The latter dis- 
agreeable by too great a mixture of Exeter folks, " who view with 
eye malign and looks askance," as Milton describes Satan to have 
done ; all strangers seeming to them as intruders on their property, 
as they consider Exmouth, and appropriated only to their pleasure : 
thither many families resort on Sundays, their day of festivity and 
amusement. Yours truly, S. Curwen. 

TO WILLIAM BROWNE, ESQ., COWBRIDGE, WALES. 

Bristol, Sept. 28, 1779. 
Dear Sir : 

I presume you cannot in your distant retreat form an idea of 



1779.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 223 

the great distress the southern coast of this island was in during 
the continuance of the combined fleets in our channel, especially 
on the lower coasts of Devon and Cornwall. The flight of the 
inhabitants from Plymouth to Exeter and inland parts during the 
panic there, spread terror and dismay wherever they came ; ex- 
cept to a few, who wished Sir Charles Hardy would, with his 
thirty-seven ships and fourteen frigates, meet the Hectors of France 
and Spain, having sixty -seven ships and fifty frigates ; and give 
them, as they phrased it, a sound drubbing : for they were sure of 
victory in case of an engagement. But thanks to the favorable stars 
of Great Britain, at that moment in the ascendant, wiser heads 
governed public councils ; he slipped by them and got safely up 
to Spithead. 

This day we have heard that Paul Jones, in the French king's 
service, has taken a forty-four gun frigate, and entered the harbor 
of Hull, and destroyed sixteen ships. 

What think you of Sir George Collier's Penobscot expedition 1 
The loss of so many ships must be insupportably heavy on our pro- 
vince, and perhaps irreparable ; however, it is a great relief to the 
English trade, they being all large ships of war, and our sailors 
expert and adroit in privateering business. 

Very truly yours, S. Cue wen. 

Sept. 28. Visited Colonel Erving and family ; afterwards 
dined and took tea with my worthy friend, Judge Sewall; his 
company, Mr. and Mrs. Faneuil. From thence I went to see Mrs. 
Gardiner, her husband the doctor, and then- daughter, Love Eppes. 
Meeting Colonel Oliver, late lieutenant-governor of Massachusetts, 
he informed me of his residence. 

Sept. 29. Invited personally by Colonel Oliver to a family 
dinner, meeting only his daughters and his brother-in-law, John 
Vassal. 

Sept. 30. By the Ladies' Magazine for August, I perceive that 
the Massachusett's Bay government limits the return of the refugees, 
or even absentees, to July, 1780. 

Oct. 9. Took tea at Mr. Erving's ; his daughter handed me 
an ancient manuscript copy of Goldsmith's Hermit, and Mr. Rus- 
sell's lines on his wife, both excellent. 



224 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1779. 

Oct. 15. Dined with Mr. Vassal in Queen's-square, in company 
with Dr. Gardiner and Robert Hallowell, the elder of the Simp- 
sons, Mr. Vassal's lady, and Miss Davis. At dinner, informed by 
Dr. Gardiner, of many circumstances relating to my countrymen's 
behavior during the siege of Boston, with which I was not before 
acquainted; and which, if true, proves that that people, hke all 
mankind, when civil commotions take place, are maddened into 
party rage. I dare say, nothing peculiarly bad, cruel, wrong, or 
unjust, characterizes that people at this unhappy period. 

Oct. 17. Papers filled with unauthenticated reports of France 
having swept the coast of Africa, and taken all our forts. 

TO REV. ISAAC SMITH, SIDMOUTH. 

Bristol, Oct. 28, 1779. 
Dear Sir : 

I should not have delayed acknowledging the receipt of your 
last favor until this day, had I not undertaken by my friend Eve- 
leigh's request to furnish your reverence with an authentic and 
minute detail of the progress of the British army to Charleston, 
their retreat, and late (for it seems to be shrewdly suspected here, 
that at present they are in the hands and keeping of the French 
and Congress,) dangerous and suffering condition at Beaufort. I 
am afraid there are too strong reasons for apprehending that event, 
it beino" rumored here, and generally believed, that administration 
has received undoubted intelligence of D'Estaing's destination to 
Georgia and the southern coast, with six thousand troops, and a 
much larger naval armament than Great Britain has in those seas 
to oppose them, with any probability of success, under Arbuthnot. 

Should General Clinton, as the papers have lately intimated, 
drain New York of five or six thousand troops, and proceed to 
Georgia, and with a slender convoy (comparatively I mean) meet 
D'Estaing, it is not difficult to foretell the fate of the American 
war ; but this is mere supposition and chance, you will say ; the 
former may arrive on the coast time enough to land himself and 
troops, and send off his transports. It will be well for England if 
he should, for the fate of their claims and pretensions on that con- 
tinent depends on that single circumstance ; should the two fleets 
meet in open sea, the odds will be so unfavorable on our side, as 



1779.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 225 

to approach the worst consequences. The Penobscot affair does 
Sir George Collier's conduct and bravery great credit, leaves an 
indelible stain on our countrymen and our province, at present in 
a defenceless condition ; to balance this account the British cause 
has suffered a disgrace and loss of equal magnitude at Stony Point. 
Perhaps you have not heard, that but for a misunderstanding be- 
tween the American generals, Verplanck's Point on the opposite 
shore had suffered the same fate. Mr. ***** read me a letter 
from Mr. * * * * *j of Falmouth, [now Portland, Maine,] wherein 
he describes the sufferings of people late in comfortable circum- 
stances, and many in a condition truly pitiable. It raised a sym- 
pathy in my breast ; I could not restrain the tear of pity, the only 
part of humanity in my power ; nor was I a little hurt by the 
manner in which it was told ; political zeal, like religious, can steel 
the heart against the feelings of nature. The succedaneum or sub- 
stitute for bread, of which some have not tasted for months, was 
dried plaice, powdered. Zeal, for aught I know, is sharpened 
rather than blunted by sufferings, though that and some other 
letters suggest that the people are almost worried out by the hard- 
ships and evils of war ; many no doubt are those, I presume, who 
gain nothing by it ; of which there are but few except the perse- 
cuted. I pray God shorten the time of their tribulation ; may all 
soon experience the blessings of peace, and unite in thanksgiving 
with one heart and one mouth. 

Very truly your friend, 

S. CURWEN. 

JVov. 3. Dined with Messrs, Simpson and Waldo, in company 
with Peter Frye, Benjamin Pickman and Richard Routh. 

JVov. 16. Visited Mr. Lechmerej drank tea with Judge 
Sewall. 

JVov. 26. Visited Mr. Barnes and Col. Oliver with Peter Frye ; 
dined with them and Benjamin Pickman at Mr. Lechmere's ; con- 
versing on American politics and Salem affairs. 

JVov. 28. Dined with Col. Oliver in company with Peter Frye 
and Benjamin Pickman. 

Dec. 14. Dined at Judge Sewall's, and played quadrille with 
Mrs. Faneuil, Mrs. Sewall and Mr. Francis Waldo. 

29 



226 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1779. 

Dec. 21. Visited Col. Erving ; drank tea by Mrs. Sewall's in- 
vitation, and passed the evening in company with Mr. J. Vassal 
and lady, and niece Davis, and Mr. R. Hallov^'ell and lady. 

Dec. 23. Received two letters from Richard Ward and wife, 
(my niece,) the first since my absence ; and one from William 
Pynchon. 

TO DR. CHARLES RUSSELL, ANTIGUA. 

Bristol, Dec. 23, 1779. 
Dear Charles : 

The numerous papers that will go with the fleet, renders it 
needless for me to send such intelligence as I can at best but im- 
perfectly furnish you with. There is little, however, of newspaper 
news, besides what is contained in the Gazette, (which does not 
always give in full, but perhaps as much information as is prudent,) 
little, I mean, of what relates to the public. The old proverb justly 
says, truth lies in a well, and difhcull it is to draw it up. I believe 
that of fifty reports five only will be founded in fact. It is the dis- 
temperature of the times, not peculiar to this period, however, (as 
the jaundiced eye gives its hue to every object,) to present only the 
party complexion of the relator; for all the world here is divided 
into American and anti-American, ministerial and anti-ministerial. 
One fact I will venture to relate, to which I was an eye and ear 
witness : residing at Exmouth while the combined fleets of France 
and Spain rode masters of the English channel, in sight for many 
days together of Plymouth, it is hardly credible how the brave, 
magnanimous hearts of the English forsook them ; a panic seized 
the country. The town of Plymouth was, as quick as thought, 
drained of its inhabitants and property, and all the neighborhood ; 
the people flying spread terror as they fled ; even the plague, or an 
earthquake, could hardly have produced more terrific apprehen- 
sions. Strange and unaccountable organization and state of the 
human mind and body, that sudden fear should produce effects more 
distressing than a deliberate, sensible view of danger ! It is equally 
unaccountable that the enemy did not land ; for had they atCawsand 
bay, then without any defence or works to annoy, and a safe shore, 
with three or four thousand men, (unprovided as we then were with 
munitions of war,) Plymouth, with the docks, works, and shipping, 



1779.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 227 

would have fallen a prey to the invaders. There was not wadding 
enough for one round in the garrison. That the enemy did not 
land and attack Sir Charles Hardy, then lying off Scilly Islands 
with a very inferior fleet, viz., thirty-seven of the line and twelve 
frigates, with his sixty-seven capital ships and thrice that number 
of frigates, is to be accounted for only on the same principle that 
Ahitophel's wise counsel was rejected ; for nothing could save our 
fleet from defeat, and the kingdom from ravage and desolation in 
consequence ; but by an overruling power, whose wisdom appoints 
and limits empires and their duration, this kingdom is preserved ; 
the wisdom of the wise we see sometimes turned to foolishness, and 
weakness made to triumph over strength and courage. 

Since those alarms of two months back, another has succeeded 
of perhaps equal magnitude: Ireland, availing herself of the dis- 
tresses of her imperious, domineering sister kingdom, has raised forty 
thousand men with arms in their hands, independent of government, 
and a majority of 143 to 42 in their House of Commons j and loudly 
and peremptorily demands a free trade, which this country has, 
however bitter the dose, with seeming complacency and readiness, 
granted. It is said the Irish are satisfied, and have besides offered 
to raise twenty thousand men ; but where men think themselves 
abridged of their natural rights, and have, or think they have power 
to recover them, it will be lucky for Old England if the Irish do 
not proceed to require other concessions. The former is not in a 
condition to reject her demands, or to force her obedience. I will 
not say Ireland can maintain her independence, but there are powers 
willing and ready to support her resistance, and England cannot go 
to war with all Europe. In truth, she receives ungrateful returns 
for her generosity, unequalled by any state since government ob- 
tained amongst mankind — but enough of this. 

I have received a second letter from my friend, "William Pyn- 
chon, Esq., and his relation in answer to my complaint of my ban- 
ishment is truly pitiable ; what he says will serve instead of a 
hundred instances to exhibit to your view a picture of the distress- 
ful situation of some of our friends, viz. : "If you knew half the 
inconveniences your continuance here would have occasioned, it 
would surely lessen your discontent ; had you lost your business, 
all your debts, the fruits of many years' labor ; been driven to seW 



228 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1779. 

your house and lands for payment of your debts and expenses ; and 
thus reduced, you still would not freely nor safely walk the streets, 
by reason of party rage and malevolence and the uncontrolled ran- 
cor of some men." 

This comforts me, and ought to console you and every other 
sufferer. I remain, dear Charles, 

Your affectionate friend, 

S. CURWEN. 

Dec. 26. Capt. Carpenter called in my absence ; he is master 
of the cartel ship from Boston, lately arrived ; friends well at Salem 
a month ago, when he left. Went to dock and saw Capt. Car- 
penter, who handed me letters from Mr. Nathan Goodale, contain- 
ing gentle hints relating to surprising revolutions in property, 
which in such times of civil commotions ever take place. 

Dec. 29. Capt. Carpenter dined with me, and passed the even- 
ing ; he gave me a more circumstantial relation of Salem, its inha- 
bitants, and concerns, its present commercial and civil state, than 
I had received from any one before, though I fancy it is somewhat 
too highly colored. 

Dec. 30. Visited Mrs. Erving and presented her a Massa- 
chusetts Bay apple, which she said she should taste with a high 
relish, adding, " to that country I feel as great partiality and love 
as to my native land." 

Dec. 31. My young townsman, William Cabot, came down 
from London to visit me, by invitation, in order to confer with 
Capt. Carpenter. Evening at Judge Sewall's, in company with 
Mr. and Mrs. Hartford. ' Thus ends another revolution of the sun. 



1780.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 229 



CHAPTER XII. 

Jan. 1, 1780. Went with William Cabot through Clifton and 
Hot Wells ; turned into merchants' dock to view the large Manilla 
ship unloading; her length 172 feet, a prize, estimated variously 
from ^50,000 to £300,000. Took tea at Mr. Wraxall's, passed an 
agreeable hour, conversation turning on history, fulfilment of pro- 
phecy, and convenience of ladies' pattens. Mrs. Wraxall has been 
represented as a stiff religionist ; the contrary this evening has af- 
forded a proof of: perhaps devotion and a conversible humor 
have alternately the ascendant ; at best we are but a very changing, 
uncertain, unsteady compound. 

Jan. 5. Left for Bath at ten, and arrived there in less than three 
hours ; patrolled the streets, viewing the Crescent, Queens-square 
and Parade, Paragon-row, Pump-room ; saw there a numerous 
company, walking, standing ; playing whist the only fashionable 
game. This city in gratitude to Beau Nash, master of ceremonies, 
had his picture taken at full length, and put up in the pump-room ; 
and unluckily between small busts of the great Newton and Mr. 
Pope, which Lord Chesterfield seeing, uttered these stanzas, viz.': 

" Immortal Newton never spoke 

More truth than here you'll find ; 
Nor Pope himself e'er penned a joke 

Severer on mankind : 
The picture placed the busts between, 

Adds to the satire's strength ; 
Wisdom and wit are little seen, 

But folly at full length." 

TO NATHAN GOODALE, ESQ., SALEM, N. E. 

Bnstol, Jan. 10, 1780. 
Dear Sir: 

I am obliged for the information contained in your letter brought 
me by Capt. Carpenter, relative to my friends and acquaintances. 



230 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1780. 

I am glad to hear that the members of the Monday night club are 
permitted to assemble without interruption. I wish the continuance 
of it, and an increase to each member of every valuable enjoyment, 
and thank them for tiieir kind remembrance of m.e. 

You may, if you please, acquaint Mrs. Sargent, with my com- 
pliments, that being about to write Col. Browne, I shall inform him 
of what you mention concerning her. You write me that as I am 
a friend to America, I shall always find friends there; that I ac- 
knowledge is a most desirable circumstance, but there are other 
considerations necessary to make any spot on earth an object wor- 
thy of any one's wish to reside in. My compliments to Mrs. 
Goodale and Miss Higginson, and your next neighbors, Mr. and 
Mrs. Cabot. 

Yours, etc., 

S. CURWEN. 

TO WILLIAM PYNCHON, ESQ , SALEM, N. E. 

Bristol, Jan. 10, 1780. 
Dear Sir : 

I commence writing, ray w^orthy friend, without knowing on what 
subject or subjects, as there is scarce any that party prejudice may 
not wrongly interpret and draw unfavorable inferences from ; besides 
the governing powers in times of war, tumult and confusion assume 
a liberty to dispense with the settled regulations of the state in 
peaceable times, and among other precautions open letters from 
foreign parts. I fear you are in the same predicament; perhaps it 
may be right, but it is a sad and mortifying restraint on distant 
friends, and prevents that agreeable intercourse, which supports 
friendship and adds to the enjoyments of life. 

With regard to my peculiar situation, connection and senti- 
ments, I must be reserved ; in general my condition is comfortable, 
although in England it requires as many hundreds as I can realize 
scores of pounds. Some people who came from your side of the 
Atlantic affect to prefer this country to their own, whether it be 
from affectation or a real preference, I pretend not to determine; 
four moi,! wish for nothing more than peace and to return thither; 
no approaches to the former I can as yet perceive. 



1780.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 231 

A few weeks since we heard of John Adams and Francis 
Dana's arrival at Paris from the Congress : little good fruit, how- 
ever, is to be expected unless one or other of the parties are dis- 
posed to recede from their pretensions, which Great Britain seems 
not at all inclined to at present. For my native country I feel a 
filial fondness ; her follies I lament, her misfortunes I pity ; her 
good I ardently wish, and to be restored to her embraces is the 
w^armest of my desires. This country is, or might be, a paradise 
of delights to those who enjoy a full purse, and are by education 
and habit formed to relish its delights, amusements and pursuits; 
but for me America is good enough. 

I was going on, having forgot to tell you that this is designed 
to acknowledge receipt of your two last agreeable favors, for which 
I acknowledge myself indebted to you in no less a sum than ten thou- 
sand thanks; great as this sum is, I am rich in them, sincere ones 
too ; but I am not likely to lessen ray capital fi om the demands of my 
American friends, you being one of the very few, to whom in the 
epistolary way I owe any debts. Ten letters from Salem are all I 
can boast in the course of almost five years, when scarce a coun- 
tryman of ours but can count as many yearly. My complaints on 
this head have proved fruitless and vain, and have more than half 
determined me to suffer myselt" to be forgotten abroad, with a very 
few exceptions; and render measure for measure, and repay 
silence by contempt. But the tender feelings of the heart are not 
to be wholly overcome ; what was anger and resentment, is by 
age, the endurance of evils ; and, perhaps, a better way of think- 
ing, changed into grief: can you then wonder, situated as I am, at 
my anxiety and distress ? I do assure you the silence and neglect 
on the part of my friends and acquaintances, has, more than banish- 
ment, oppressed my mind ; the latter is not a light burden, and 
when added to the former, exceeds my religion and philosophy to 
support. The heart of old age, if not rendered callous by vicious 
indulgences, is tender as in infancy ; but, to quit the plaintive strain, 
— You tell me I forget de Repub., &c. : I confess 1 am like poor 
Faithful in Pilgrim's Progress, ever almost in the slough of despair; 
would it were in your power to dart a ray of hope into my gloomy 
mind. I thank my countrymen for the less unfavorable opinion 
conceived of me than some others. For my part, I would cheer- 



232 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1780. 

fully promote to the extent of ray power the good of individuals, 
and that of the puhlic ; but with regard to the latter, I cannot give 
my approbation to their whole system of politics. The present 
circumstances of affairs do not allow me to indulge one wish to 
return, till they are a little better settled ; and can easily imagine 
the evils you suggest, which, at my time of life, would quickly 
overwhelm my poor crazy bark ; hardly able to keep above water 
even where the waves are not rough. Please remember my kind- 
est regards to all my acquaintance ; particularly the members of 
the Monday night club, which I learn still subsists ; I wish its 
continuance and increase of worthy members. I fear my worthy 
old friend, Mr. McGilchrist, has forgotten me ; apropos, it has been 
my good fortune for a course of three winters passed in Exeter, to 
find a worthy and intimate friend, who, in his moral, religious, and 
philosophical character, bears the nearest resemblance to my said 
Salem friend. To him I am indebted for much useful information 
and entertainment; for his and the sake of a very few, T left that 
quarter with reluctance. It has been frequently in my thoughts 
to make a collection of the best pieces that the press affords, for the 
benefit of my friends and myself; but that depends on contingencies. 
The execution of that, and some other designs I have had in my 
mind and view, must be deferred, I fear, to a distant day. 

Our friends are scattered all over the face of the land, and if 
soon to be summoned to appear before the last tribunal, they might 
truly be said to be brought from the east, west, north, and south. 
Present my kindest regards to Mrs. Pynchon and all your family. 
Sincerely wishing you a healthy body, quiet mind, and a full purse, 
which I think comprehends all earthly blessings, 

I am, with perfect esteem, your friend, 

S. Cur WEN. 

Jan. 13. Capt. Carpenter, young Jonathan Gardner, both of 
Salem, and a Mr. Leavitt, having arrived in a cartel ship from 
Boston, dined with me, and passed the afternoon and evening. 

Jan. 20. Took tea with Mrs. Gardner, in company with Mr. 
Randolph, brother of the Congress member, though of contrary 
political principles. 

Jan. 30. Charles's martyrdom ; attended service in cathedral ; 



1780.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 233 

young Camplin preached a serious discourse from "Blessed are 
the dead that die in the Lord." He modestly and laudably avoided 
any reference to the day. I could not fail to notice the difference 
between this mock solemnity here and at Exeter : — here, no mayor 
nor corporation attended in a procession of city officers, with their 
staves covered with black, nor was the pulpit in the same grim 
color. The service was read, with singing, as on other church 
holidays ; assembly of an indifferent appearance, far from numer- 
ous. 

TO WILLIAM BROWNE, ESQ., COWBRIDGE, WALES. 

Bristol, Feb. 10, 1780. 
Dear Sir: 

Perhaps it may amuse you to be made acquainted with a few 
particulars relating to our own country and town, that may not 
have come to your knowledge. About six weeks ago a prize ship 
from Boston arrived here with thirty-six passengers, who were 
suffered to depart, under verbal promise to return back again to 
captivity if this government should not acknowledge the ship to be 
a cartel, and send back an equal number of Americans to Boston 
or to France. In the event, no notice is taken of them, as might 
be expected ; the ship is claimed, and as yet subjudice, though it is 
thought it will be determined in favor of the claimants. The 
American owner is a Mr. Mitchell, Irish by birth, American in 
principle and alliance, being married to a daughter of George 
Bethune. The master, a Mr. Carpenter, who you know married 
the youngest of the Gerrishes, and tried to be a loyalist (applying, 
unsuccessfully, however, for a pension) about two years since, 
whilst he resided with his wife at Brompton-row ; on his rejection 
he took wit in his anger and returned to Salem. From him and 
young Gardner, only son of Jonathan Gardner, Jr., I have obtained 
the annexed list of prices, which, instead of a score of arguments, 
may prove the low condition of Congressional credit, and show the 
exorbitant rate of the useful articles of life, and perhaps their 
scarcity. It is a melancholy truth, that whilst some are wallowing 
in undeserved wealth that plunder and rapine have thrown into 
their hands, the wisest, most peaceable, and most deserving, such 
as you and I know, are now suffering want, accompanied by many 

30 



234 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [ 1780, 

indignities that a licentious, lawless people can pour forth upon 
them. 

Those who five years ago were the " meaner people," are now, 
by a strange revolution, become almost the only men of power, 
riches and influence ; those w^ho, on the contrary, were leaders and 
in the highest line of life, are glad at this time to be unknown and 
unnoticed to escape insult and plunder, the wretched condition of 
all who are not violent, and adopters of republican principles. The 
Cabots of Beverly, who, you know, had but five years ago a very 
moderate share of property, are now said to be by far the most 
wealthy in New England; Hasket Derby claims the second place 
in the list, and ****** puts in for a place amongst 
the first three ; Mr. Goodale, by agency concerns in privateers and 
buying shares, counts almost as many pounds as most of his neigh- 
bors. The following are persons of the most eminence for business 
in Salem, as far as my memory serves, viz. : Hasket Derby, Wil- 
liam Pickraan, George Crowninshield, William Vans, Capt. Harra- 
drn, a brave and notable privateer captain, Joseph Henfiekl, Capt. 
Silsbee, Samuel Gardner, Joseph and Joshua Grafton's sons, Fran- 
cis Clarke, Capt. George Dodge's youngest sons, Jos. Orne. E. H. 
Derby's province tax is ^11,000, and his neighbors complain he is 
not half taxed. The immensely large nominal sums which some 
are said to be worth, shrink into diminutive bulk when measured 
by the European standard of gold and silver. In New England a 
dollar bill is worth only 2 f of an English halfpenny. Pins at Is. 
a piece, needles at 2s., beef 2s. 6d., veal 2s., mutton and lamb 
Is. 6d., butter 6s. per lb., rum eight dollars per gallon, molasses 
two dollars, brown sugar 10s. per lb., loaf sugar 15s., Bohea tea 
seven dollar's per lb., cotfee -five dollars, Irish pork sixty dollars per 
barrel, lemons 3s. apiece, wood twenty dollars a cord, ordinary 
French cloth twenty-two dollars a yard, hose nine dollars a pair. 
A suit of clothes which cost five guineas here, would cost five 
hundred dollars in Boston. Yours, &c. 

S. CURWEN. 

Feb. 13. To the Moravian chapel ; Mr. Washington, the set- 
tled minister, preached from, " Jlnd heing fashioned as a man," etc. 
The great point insisted on, as usual, was, that the supreme Deity, 



1~S0.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 235 

the God and Father of all, or to use their own language, " the eter- 
nal Jehovah, svffered death actually, truly and properly, in the per- 
son of Christ, or was the real suffering, dying being, who expired on 
the cross.''' In the course of these extemporaneous or memoriter 
effusions, such terms and expressions were used that made my blood 
more than once almost forsake its channels ; in truth, I was as- 
tonished and hurt to an extreme degree, and it has caused me to 
resolve on forsaking this and all assemblies of like over-zealous 
orthodox tenets. 

Feb. 16, To the " Wells" over St. Vincent's through Clifton, 
by Sir William Draper's ; from thence across Brandon hill to Judge 
Sewall's, where drank tea in company with Mr. and Mrs. Barnes, 
Miss Arbuthnot, their niece, and Miss Russell. 

Feb. 29. Took a walk and went on 'change with Mr. Erving; 
then a passage in the B^th coach at four o'clock, and at half past 
six alighted at the " Three Tuns inn ;" from thence on foot to the 
coffee-house in Orange-grove, where I remained for two hours 
reading papers, drinking coffee, etc., and received information from 
John Boylston, my countryman, that my friend Isaac Smith, for 
whose sake I took this ramble, was to leave at nine to-morrow for 
Bristol ; so I bespoke a seat in the same stage. Passed two hours 
in the streets and Abbey-square among the crowd — ears entertained 
by musketry discharged from the abbey leads and ringing of bells, 
to celebrate Sir G, Rodney's victory over Don Langara ; — retired 
to the inn, supped and lodged. Gov. Hutchinson's son William 
died on the 20th instant. 

Bath, March 1. After breakfast I entered the carriage and de- 
parted with my friend Smith, and at twelve o'clock alighted at the 
White Hart, Bristol. Mr. Smith dined with me ; he having engaged 
himself to Mr. Wright and lady, who were this afternoon to pay 
a visit at Mr. Erving's, my friend and I joined company to tea ; at 
eight o'clock with the family took a turn in Queen's-square, to 
view the illuminations, which were brilliant, in honor of Sir G. 
Rodney's victory of 16th January. 

March 4. By invitation dined at Judge Sewall's with Mr. 
Smith, R. and N. Lechmere, Col. Oliver, Mr. Simpson, Mr. Fran- 
cis Waldo and Mr. Vassal. 

March 5. Engaged at tea to partake of Mrs. Bearpacker's 



236 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1780. 

" mothering cake." It is a custom here on mid-lent Sunday for a 
cake to be brought to mothers, in conformity to which custom some 
females make a large one and present it to their acquaintance. 
This custom continues in Gloucestershire, and is said to be derived 
from Joseph's making himself known to his brethren. 

March 6. Dined at Mr. F. Waldo's with Mr. Simpson, his 
nephew, and young Borland. 

TO MR. LAKIN, BIRMINGHAM. 

Bristol, March 6, 1780. 
Dear Sir: 

You are pleased to compliment me on my knowledge of the 
state of affairs in America, but really, should I attempt a narrative of 
its present political and commercial condition, I fear it would be too 
imperfect to aiford you much useful information. So great a rev- 
olution in both respects has taken place since my departure, so dif- 
ferent is the channel of business, so little the concerns that I have 
amongst the commercial people here, and so slender my advices 
about them, being chiefly newspaper intelligence, which you know 
is not always the word of Apollo, that it would be rashness to com- 
mit to paper my undigested thoughts on those subjects. I strongly 
suspect the independency of America, or a system of pohtical and 
civil government, will sooner or later be established there, to the 
utter overthrow of the navigation act of Charles 11. , and the com- 
merce of Great Britain with the American colonies and her other 
foreign dominions, if she will be powerful enough to retain any, 
which I fear ; in this case it may be easily discerned that by open- 
ing new channels, trade will assume a new face, and be conducted 
by very different people, and on quite different principles. 

You propose undertaking a journey here, and I assure you of a 
cordial welcome to my lodgings, to pass your time while here ; and 
as conversation admits of less restraint than writing, I shall with 
the greatest cheerfulness communicate as much as lies within the 
compass of my knowledge relating to the subject of your inquiry. 
I wish the benefit you might derive from my information would 
bear any proportion to the pleasure I shall receive in communi- 
cating ; for you can scarce be more obliging than to afford me an 
occasion of paying in person my respects to him for whose former 



1780.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 237 

civilities I am indebted more than is in my power at present to dis- 
charge. To your kind inquiry I am happy to answer, my friends, 
far removed from the seat of war, escape descents on their coasts 
and inroads on their frontiers, which their brethren in the southern 
colonies unhappily do not. A more particular relation I must de- 
fer to a personal interview. 

Yours truly, 

S. CURWEN. 

March 11. Dined at Mr. Erving's with two daughters of a 
Mr. Ewen, who had been residents on Rhode Island, but driven off 
by civil storm ; and being told that Capt. and Mrs. Fenton with 
myself, intended to dine with them at Brislington, expressed their 
pleasure to see us next Monday. 

March 14. Took tea at Judge Sewall's ; company Mr. Simp- 
son, Mr. F. Waldo, Mr. Faneuil and lady, and Miss Russell. 

April 14. Visited by Nathaniel Coffin and R. Hallowell ; 
meeting widow Borland's eldest son John, recognized each other, 
made mutual compliments and invitations. 

TO WILLIAM PYNCHON, ESQ., SALEM, N. E. 

Bristol, April 19, 1780. 
Dear Sir : 

The bearer, being acquainted with the state of our political af- 
fairs, will communicate more than would be prudent for me to 
commit to paper, should I be disposed to dabble in that dangerous 
business, politics. A tedious, uniformly insipid inactivity soon ren- 
ders every place displeasing ; but my removal from hence depends 
on contingencies not to be foreseen. If I leave, I shall engage in 
a week's ramble, and like the father of the faithful, go, not know- 
ing whither ; the world is all before me where to choose my place 
of rest, hitherto unfound, and with no land of promise before me. 
******* 

Perhaps it may be amusing to you to be informed of the num- 
ber of Americans in Bristol, who are comprised in the following 
list :— 

Col. Oliver and six daughters ; Mr. R. Lechmere, his brother 
Nicholas, wife and two daughters; Mr. John Vassal, wife and 



238 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1780. 

niece, Miss Davis ; Mr. Barnes, wife and niece ; Miss Arbuthnot ; 
Mr. Nathaniel Coffin, wife and family ; Mr. Robert Hallowell, wife 
and children ; Judge Sewall, wife, sister, and two sons ; Samuel 
Sewall with his kinsman, Mr. Faneuil, and wife ; Mr. Francis 
Waldo and Mr. Simpson, together with Mrs. Borland, a son 
and three daughters. I send this by young Gardner, who with 
Mr. Leavitt and Capt. Carpenter leaves us to-morrow, and will 
shift for their passage to America as they can. 

Very truly, 

S. Cur WEN. 

TO MR. RICHARD WARD, SALEM, N. E. 

Bristol, Jipril 19, 1780. 
Dear Sir: 

Your two favors of the 5th and 12th of November are at hand. 
You say, that " to the many we have written you, we have re- 
ceived no answer ;" it is not a little unaccountable, that of many 
not one should have arrived to me before these two ; for that in 
truth is the case. That neither you nor my niece should in the 
course of five years take the least notice of her only uncle, was in 
my judgment a singular instance of forgetfulness ; that you was a 
partisan I well knew, though not in the rankest degree I hope ; 
and it is natural that she should be biassed to the side you took, 
and I thus accounted for the dead silence through the long interval 
between my departure and the receipt of yours ; but your declara- 
tion has explained the difficulty, and I find, greatly to my satisfac- 
tion, that other causes than those I suggested to myself have 
prevented my receiving those instances of notice and regard which 
your relation to me demanded. That I find no acknowledgment 
in yours of the receipt of even one of the many sent to my niece 
and you, is to be accounted for in the same way. 

The Irish, availing themselves of the embarrassment of Great 
Britain, have got an enlargement of privileges, and talk of making 
further demands. That the war is at a distance from your own 
doors, the melancholy reports from the southward afford you the 
strongest reasons for daily thanks ; may it not be your misfortune 
in the Massachusetts Bay to experience the sufferings, ravages, 
carnage and devastation of her sister southern colonies. 



1780.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 239 

Absence from all I hold dear on earth is an evil, and the pecu- 
liar condition I am in, increases its severity ; but I endeavor to 
muster my whole stock of religion and philosophy, and with the 
united aid of both, and a few amusements, life is tolerable. I 
cannot prevail with myself to quit a peaceful region, and attempt 
a passage across the Atlantic during this state of turmoil; should I 
choose a place to reside in on the western side of the globe, Halifax 
would not be the spot ; nothing but the prospect of great gains, 
which reconciles all climates and people, would make that place 
in any degree tolerable ; besides, the expense of living is as extra- 
vagant as in England, without any of its advantages to counter- 
balance their many inconveniences and evils. I thank you for the 
expressions of kindness and good-will from you both respecting my 
peace of mind. Tell your son, my namesake, I shall answer his 
letter soon. With unfeigned regard, your uncle, 

S. CURWEN. 

Jipril 24. This day, five years are complete since I abandoned 
my house, estate, effects and friends. God only knows whether I 
shall ever be restored to them, or they to me. Party rage, like 
jealousy and superstition, is cruel as the grave ; — that moderation 
is a crime in times of civil confusions, many good, virtuous and 
peaceable persons, now suffering banishment from America, are 
the wretched proofs and instances. — May it please God to inspire 
with wisdom and true policy the principal conductors in this truly 
lamentable war on both sides the Atlantic, and give peace in our 
time. Did I know how to emancipate myself from this constrained, 
useless, uniform blank of life, and enter on an active course, I 
would joyfully seize the occasion. 

Evening at theatre to see " Belle's Stratagem ;" entertainment 
"Waterman." I would not indulge a cynical, surly disposition, 
but cannot help acknowledging that I find great disappointment 
at the theatrical performances. Actors fall below my idea of just 
imitation; to my seeming they overact, underact, or contradict 
nature ; — a hero is a bully, a gentleman is a coxcomb, a coxcomb 
a fool, a lady affected, pert or insipid ; but gamesters, chamber- 
maids, footmen, indeed, the whole series of under-characters, not 
illy played. 



240 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1780. 

April 28. A lethargy respecting the pubhc interest has seized 
the people of this country ; which the selfish principles, supremely 
governing, or rather tyrannizing over all ranks and orders, ages, 
sexes and conditions, has brought on them ; they are devoted vic- 
tims, and so I leave them to their impending fate. I really think 
that neither administration nor opposition is composed of uncommon 
characters ; for if other men in each line were to succeed these that 
now figure on the political stage, the same, or nearly the same 
parts would be played ; for in the corrupt state of this people, 
ministerial conduct, such as it is, is necessary ; I do not say expe- 
dient, for the wheels of government cannot move an inch without 
money to grease them. Did the circumstances of things admit, I 
verily believe my favorite Lord North, who I take to be one of the 
best characters in the whole British empire, would shine one of 
the brightest luminaries that ever enlightened the political hemi- 
sphere. 

Walked abroad, and met one of my countrymen ; who informed 
me that, by a packet twenty-five days from New- York, advices 
had been received that General Clinton, after two months from 
thence, had arrived at Georgia ; and had proceeded to within a 
mile and a half of Charleston, S. C, before which he was to have 
opened his batteries of forty cannon on the 1 1th of March ; that 
the town had from four to six thousand troops within, and a great 
plenty of military and other stores ; that it was divided into four 
parts by deep trenches or canals filled with water, intersecting 
each other at right angles ; that the Americans were resolved to 
dispute the ground inch by inch; but party representation adds, 
however, that they had no great relish for a patriotic death. 

Afternoon and evening at Judge Sewall's ; — company, Mrs. 
Long of Ireland, Mr. and Mrs. Faneuil, Mr. Oxnard, with young 
Inraan and his wife, a son of Ralph's, in the military line, and Miss 
Inman. 

May 14. Evening at Lady Huntingdon's chapel ) Mr. Wills 
preached; who took an affectionate leave, being about to depart on 
a converting progress through South Wales. He warmly con- 
tended against the damnable doctrine of Arianism ; the professors 
of which, at one blow, he condemned to eternal perdition. Pity it 
is that orthodoxy, meaning thereby not right, just thinking, but the 



1780.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 241 

belief of established notions, under the sanction of civil authority, 
should always, in all cases, and at all times, be accompanied with 
uncharitableness ; the understood characteristic of the false church. 

May 17. Public expectations are at the highest pitch re- 
specting the success of General Clinton, and the great advantages 
government will derive from it ; if it shall be the occasion, sup- 
posing he shall become possessed of Charleston, of producing a 
reconciliation on generous and safe terms, my joy will accompany 
the general acclamation. 

May 19. Nathaniel Coffin is going to Bath for his health. 
Meeting R. Hallowell in the street, he read some paragraphs in a 
letter from his father Gardiner at Poole, informing of the distresses 
of our country, discontent of people at the continuance of the 
troubles, and intimating wishes to return to former connections 
with this country, wherein I cordially join ; — would that that happy 
event might soon take place, with honor and safety to all parties '- 

May 29. This being Restoration-day, some houses are distin- 
guished by oak branches in front, which is a mark of attachment 
to monarchy ; and by many of regard to the excluded family, at 
least in some places, as Manchester, Exeter, &c. 

June 5. This being the appointed day for setting out on a 
tour of pleasure to the north by Judge Sewall, Samuel Sewall and 
myself, I was early notified by a thundering at the door ; being 
awake, I soon descended, and found my friend's eldest son with a 
message, desiring my immediate presence at breakfast before de- 
parture. Complying with the summons, on going over, I found 
the family up, and all things in readiness, but the owner of the 
carriage delayed us for an hour ; at length it arrived, and taking 
leave of our friends, we set forward in an unpromising air ; 
the morning being cloudy, with the appearance of rain, which 
through the day came down in the form of a drizzle. At nine, we 
alighted at the Bell inn, Newport, distant eighteen miles j hence 
to Gloucester ; roads for the greater part dirty and bad j grounds 
fertile ; farm-houses, barns, and avenues slovenly ; fences in ill 
repair and low. At twelve alighted at King's Head inn, at the last 
mentioned place ; here took a collation ; taking a relay, departed 
for Newton. Here it came into my head to inquire of our host, 
who seemed to be lazy man, whether his was the house referred to 

31 



242 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1780. 

in Tom Jones, where Sophia Western's muff was picked up by her 
paramour ; to which he replied in the affirmative, and offered to 
show the bed where it lay ; had his invitation been to see the 
charming young lady herself, I doubt whether my answer would 
have been what I gave him. Here we stopped no longer than to 
have fresh horses put to. Hence to Worcester is twelve miles, 
and over excellent roads j pleasant hedges and well cultivated 
lands in view. 

Worcester, June 6. Strolled for two hours, viewing the cathe- 
dral and new bridge, which latter is now finishing, and a beautiful 
structure. The new street leading to the centre of the city on one 
end, and to the bridge on the other, will, when completed, be a fine 
avenue, and among its greatest ornaments. At ten departed hence 
to Horbrook, eleven miles ; here took a new relay, and choosing the 
road through Kidderminster, alighted at Bridgenorth, distance from 
former stage sixteen miles. This town lies in Salop, and for situa- 
tion is most singular, part being on a lofty plain, faced with a rock 
in some spots nearly perpendicular, the ascent to which is by slopes 
and steps in a kind of serpentine line ; on the front is a terrace, 
affording a view of the lower town. The town is situated on both 
sides of the river Severn, communicating by a bridge ; a well 
cultivated country is in prospect from the upper part, bounded by 
hills in a circular line, rising gradually one beyond another ; the 
lands interspersed with rows, clumps and forests of trees, and scat- 
tered habitations of farm houses and gentlemen's seats. In the up- 
per town are the remains of an ancient castle, destroyed when 
Cromwell took the town, that before was in the king's interest ; 
one side or line of the wall to the height of forty feet projects fif- 
teen or eighteen feet, occasioned either by the settling of the ground, 
or by force of many cannon balls striking on it at once. The ef- 
fects on the front yet appear in the very many excavations in the 
stone of the size of eighteen and twenty-four pound balls ; it is 
separated by a chasm or breach of twelve to fifteen feet wide, and 
as many long from the standing part ; thickness six feet. Cement, 
not of hard consistency, has retained its present state much beyond 
the memory of man. Be it as it may, the inhabitants are well sat- 
isfied it will continue till a great convulsion of nature shall overturn 
the great fabric of the globe itself The town on the hill has two 



1780.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 243 

churches exempt from the bishop, and called ^'peculiars " under 
jurisdiction of the Whitmores, who have right of visitation ; also 
right of advowson, and can exercise all right of ecclesiastical juris- 
diction except sacerdotal. 

After an en passant survey, we took fresh horses and convey- 
ance, and set off for Brosely, distant from hence eight miles ; to 
this place arrived in an hour, took a look at the iron bridge. Next 
stage Much-Wenlock, distance hence twelve miles ; a pitiful inn 
and town, where we lodged ; Shrewsbury, our last stage, lying at 
twelve miles distance. Here we visited the residence of Samuel 
Porter, late of my native place, Salem ; but the prima facie view 
of my townsman's lodgings convinced us that it was not a fit place 
for us to remain at. After hearty congratulations, bid him adieu 
for the present, and returned back to the Talbot inn, leaving our 
other companions, Samuel Sewall and Samuel Porter, to measure 
the distance through the fields on foot, where they soon arrived af- 
ter us. Here we proposed to fix our tent for two or three days -, 
having bespoke dinner, we had a social tete-a-tete, and after a 
hearty meal, and a few glasses of port, took myself off to find out 
my other townsman, Capt. Poynton, who was also become a resi- 
dent here, and whom I found at a namesake's, living on Pride hill, 
so called, within the town. After tea I took him to our companions, 
and all joining issued forth to see the town and ascertain the ex- 
pense of living, which we found higher than at Bristol. Shrews- 
bury is populous, having several churches ; there is a most agree- 
able walk of a circular form on the banks of the Severn, 
half a mile in extent, and surrounded by lofty trees. There are 
still ruins of an old castle, now become private property and the 
seat of the owner, standing on a lofty eminence and commanding 
the town. There is also a large building intended for a foundling 
hospital, but not succeeding, is now fitted up for Spanish prisoners, 
when they catch them. 

Shrewsbury, June 9. We reassumed our post-chaise seats 
and departed from " proud Salop," as it is called, for having refused 
the offer of the crown to make it a city, saying " it is better to be a 
large town than a small city" — leaving our two townsmen to their 
respective enjoyments. However, before leaving this place, I must 
observe, Mr. Samuel Sewall and myself, with Capt. Poynton, dined 



244 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1780. 

at Samuel Porter's lodgings, which we found well provided ; and 
the next night, being the night preceding the one to our departure, 
passed at the " Gullet" inn, the resort of all better sort to hear and 
tell news. During my stay within, I heard read several letters 
from lords, sirs, etc., from London, with relations of the mob that 
was raging there. From hence to Ellesmere, sixteen miles, we ran 
in two and a half hours, being accommodated with fresh horses ; 
thence to Wrexham, eleven miles ; respectable in buildings, some 
fine streets, a market and well built church, erected about the time 
of the reformation ; its tower superbly decorated in Gothic style. 
Next stage was Chester, at eleven miles distance ; stopped at the 
Golden Talbot in Eastgate-street, house of best repute, large, with 
a handsome coffee-room, ball and drawing rooms, it being the as- 
sembly house. This small city is singularly circumstanced, having 
a delightful terrace walk on top of walls encompassing it round, in 
length near two miles, defended with a breastwork or parapet 
about three feet high ; has no guns nor embrasures, nor platforms 
for unevenness of surface within the walls and adjoining grass ; the 
walk in some places is but a few feet above the level within, and 
others as high as tops of chimneys. On the quarter bounded by 
the river Dee it is sixty or eighty feet above the surface of the water ; 
on one or two streets is a covered way or walk raised one story 
above the street called the rows ; the ascent is by many flights of 
steps from the streets, rendering it very convenient to foot passen- 
gers, especially in foul weather ; these are filled with shops and 
stores above and below ; the passage ways are paved with flags, 
the breadth twelve to fifteen feet. This city has the appearance 
of antiquity, though there are many very genteel, tasty, and noble 
houses ; I should judge the number between two and three thou- 
sand, inhabitants about seventeen thousand. Just within the walls 
is a most beautiful race-ground. I forgot to mention the cathedral, 
of no great extent and rather indifferent appearance ; it was how- 
ever in decent repair, but contained nothing remarkable. 

Having taken a view of the whole place, we took leave of Ches- 
ter, designing for Manchester by way of Duke of Bridgewater's 
canal from Warrington ; on that route our first stage was Fords- 
ham, an indifferent small village, distance ten miles. The keeper 
of the inn an Irishman, not wanting in the characteristic mark of 



1780.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 245 

that country, a hold unblushing face ; after a plausible commenda- 
tion of his carriages and horses, he gave us a sorry post-chaise and 
a pair of miserable cattle ; he yet had the impudence to apply to 
us to procure the land from Warrington to this paltry village to be 
made a turnpike, saying it would be pounds in his pocket, which 
I really doubt. He mistook us for parliament-men. From hence 
to Warrington ten miles ; the inn, the " Red Lion," tolerable. 
Streets narrow, dirty, and ill paved ; like many other towns, with 
a gutter running through the middle, rendering it inconvenient 
passing streets. This town abounds in dissenters, and has an aca- 
demy for young preachers of that persuasion. Governor Hutchin- 
son was to have been buried at Brompton yesterday. 

Warrington, June 11. Set off on foot for London bridge, so 
called from its lying in the great London road across the canal, at 
two miles' distance herefrom. This spot is a common rendezvous 
whither flock all passengers whom curiosity prompts, or business 
urges, to sail up to Manchester, at twenty miles' distance ; or down to 
the locks at Runcorn, on the other hand, ten miles distant ; or across 
the Mersey to Liverpool, this being the common route. Two boats 
daily carry passengers up and down. Diverted from our intended 
route, Manchester, we turned our course to a contrary direction, sail- 
ing down to Runcorn to view the celebrated locks ; passed in our 
passage under sixteen bridges laid across the canal, consisting of 
one brick arch of eighteen to twenty-two feet span, and twelve 
feet high. Of these we were told there are sixty-four ; probable 
enough, including the branches and marine cut, for Judge Oliver 
counted on the grand canal forty-eight. The boats for passengers 
are fifty feet long and fifteen wide, and will hold a hundred per- 
sons. Arrived at Runcorn in two hours, and supped at " White 
Hart" inn. Samuel Sewall and myself having amused ourselves 
for two hours in seeing a barge enter from the river Mersey 
into the first lock and through to the canal, we returned back 
and met our companion the judge, whose curiosity did not stim- 
ulate him to stay so long in the cold as ours did ; and found the 
inn crowded with great numbers of jolly lads and lasses, met 
to congratulate our landlady's daughter, lately married and just 
returned home, after a week's absence. The concluding scene of 
Sunday, being considered in England as a relief from labor, is 



246 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1780. 

generally spent in ale-houses by the middling and lower sorts, in 
merry-making. 

Rimcorn, June 12. Walked abroad, shaping my course to 
church-yard, where I saw the curate and his clerk ; name of former 
was Sewell. I returned by the way I went, acquainting my com- 
panions, who had arrived before me, of the adventures. They 
regretted my neglect in making no inquiry, nor informing the 
curate of their name ; but I was loth to incur the imputation of 
impertinence which he justly might have made, in instituting inqui- 
ries about such matters as people of this country are shy about 
communicating to strangers. At eleven o'clock reshipped our- 
selves on board same barge, and returned back to whence we came, 
where, finding a chaise ready for Liverpool, we again diverged 
from our right-line course, Manchester, and struck off for that 
town, twenty miles distant ; returning back to Warrington, pro- 
ceeded to Prescott, at ten miles' distance, where took a relay. 
This town is noted for coal-pits and watch movements ; from the 
former Liverpool is principally supplied by wagons. 

Entered the city of Liverpool, so celebrated for its commercial 
character ; houses by a great majority in middling and lower 
style, few rising above that mark ; streets long, narrow, crooked, 
and dirty in an eminent degree. During our short abode here, w^e 
scarcely saw a well-dressed person, nor half a dozen gentlemen's 
carriages ; few of the shops appear so well as in other great towns; 
dress and looks more like the inhabitants of Wapping, Shadwell, 
and Rotherhithe, than in the neighborhood of the Exchange, or 
any part of London above the Tower. The whole complexion 
nautical, and so infinitely below all our expectations, that nought 
but the thoughts of the few hours we had to pass here rendered it 
tolerable. The docks however are stupendously grand ; the inner 
one, called Town Dock, lying in the centre of it, and filled with 
vessels exhibiting a forest of masts ; besides this, are three very 
large ones lying in front of the city, communicating with each 
other by flood-gates, intermixed with dry ones for repairing. The 
lower or new one has a fine wide quay on its outer side, an agreea- 
ble walk being lined with trees on either hand ; below this, on the 
river, is now building, nearly finished, a circular battery with 
embrasures for thirty cannon. Parade and barracks are in hand, 



1780.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 247 

and when completed will afford a charming walk and prospect if 
allowed to the inhabitants. 

Liverpool, June 12. Taking a circuitous ramble through this, 
to us, disgustful place, returned to inn, paid our bill, and entered 
the carriage we came in, which the driver and owner would fain, 
but for Judge and Samuel Sewall's resolution, have jockeyed us 
out of, designing craftily to shift us off to the common stage ; but 
his plan being disappointed, w^e were replaced in our own carriage, 
with no company but ourselves. Bidding adieu to Liverpool, we 
set forward to Prescott, where we took a relay and proceeded to 
Warrington ; here we were detained two hours, waiting the arrival 
of boats. At two o'clock we re-entered our apartment, filled with 
fresh passengers, among them Mrs. Dawson, wife of the governor 
of the Isle of Man, returning from an excursion ; she was a native 
of Nova Scotia, and daughter of a Colonel Hamilton, and had 
resided in Boston. Mr. Corbet, an attorney of Brosely, also added 
no inconsiderable pleasure by his social turn while sailing on an 
unruffled surface through a finely improved country, over hills and 
dales, rivers and bridges ; in five hours we arrived safely at Man- 
chester. Examined the ingenious machinery and operations of 
calico-printing. Took carriage for Castleton at the peak of Derby, 
passing through Stockport and Disley. The country, as we ap- 
proached the peak, hilly. By persuasion the judge reluctantly 
walked out to the cave at Castleton, being desirous to defer it till 
following morning, accompanied by Samuel Sewall. After break- 
fast, taking leave of the vale, we ascended the hill overlooking the 
town; the road extends to the further end in a circular line, 
affording a pleasing view of the lofty surrounding hills and a charm- 
ing vale beneath, diversified with trees, live hedges, scattered farm- 
houses, villages, and towers ; the descent on the side of the vale is 
quick, and in case of accident hazardous. In ascending Mr. Sewall 
and myself chose the safest and most expeditious way on foot, not 
indeed the most comfortable, being surrounded by a gang of children 
who constantly accompany carriages, that necessarily move at a 
slow pace, soliciting charity with piteous looks and accents, which 
from earliest childhood they have been taught to frame. At length 
we arrived at Bakewell, fourteen miles, and whilst changing horses 
I visited the church-yard on an eminence, whence is a pleasing 



248 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1780. 

view of the vale, rendered more so by its contrast with the naked, 
barren hills wherewith it is encompassed on all sides. This plain, 
with scarce a rising to intercept the sight for miles, abounds in 
pastures, grass and corn lands inclosed by live hedges, and trees in 
rows and clumps ; of the latter there are many inclosures of con- 
siderable extent, and of great height and bulk. Most of the best 
improvements are on the Duke of Rutland's estate, who has a large 
and noble old mansion-house, called Haddon Hall, within sight of 
the traveller. 

The road to Matlock is an excellent turnpike, through this de- 
lightful vale, distance twelve miles ; the eye is refreshed a good part 
of the way with a sight of the river Dee, a gentle stream which 
continued to and beyond the last mentioned place, where we arrived 
at twelve o'clock. Dismissing the coach, we took up our abode in 
this indescribably pleasing, romantic spot for a few hours — sadly 
regretting after leaving it that we had not dedicated longer time to 
it. This cluster of half a dozen houses, including tradesmen's and 
the large inn for servants and short visitants, as our company, are 
filled with apartments for the reception and accommodation of those 
who resort hither for sake of bathing, to which it is confined. Its 
remote situation, (its nearest neighbor on one hand Bakewell at 
ten miles, and on the other Derby at sixteen,) separates it, in a 
manner, from all society. It is situated on the banks of the Dee, 
which by the approach of the craggy hills contract to little more 
than the bed of the river, which flows even to the foot of them. 
This spot lies under a circular range of hills conforming to the 
course of the river ; the side of this range is in spots clothed with 
bushes, shrubs, and trees of various dimensions, interspersed with 
bare spots and shelving rocks, overhanging and threatening instant 
fall. In some the ascent is quick, in other parts easy, and in the 
midst of this unpromising barren wild are levels that nature or in- 
dustry have made, now improved as habitations for the poor but 
perhaps contented few, whose lot has cast them into this dreary 
spot ; each hut being accommodated with a small plat for garden 
and yard. To the spectator on the other side, a view of these 
singularly situated habitations is picturesque and pleasing. Just 
below the houses for company's residence, on a plain lying but 
little above the level of the river, are covered baths, supplied by 



1780.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 249 

streams from hills, issuing under the foundation of houses, but they 
have no distinguishing character. 

Crossing the ferry, of a hundred feet, we found a serpentine 
walk, cut and levelled for a quarter of a mile, then limited by a 
lead mine, now working. This walk is a delicious retreat in a 
sultry day, the trees on either hand forming an embowering shade j 
it is accommodated with field seats, from whence are vistas, two 
terminating in natural cascades, rendered, however, more perfect 
by art. Returning back from hence to end of walk, we began our 
ascent over slopes and steps to the summit of this very craggy hill, 
which is extremely tedious, and puts the lungs as well as muscles to 
no small exercise. About three fourths the way up stands an alcove 
to rest the weary traveller, where we were glad to avail ourselves 
of a seat for awhile. Having at length gained the summit, we 
thought ourselves fully repaid for fatigue by the charming prospect, 
both in respect to its extensiveness and variety. Though we were 
so exalted, the Fox, as it is called, being the extreme end of the 
range of mountains on other side, almost insulated, lifted its aspiring 
head nearly as much above us as we were above the surface of the 
river that we beheld flowing just under our feet. The manner in 
which visitors live together is social and harmonious; the meals 
taken in a common room, none having a precedence ; their mixture 
promiscuous ; attendance at a certain hour notified by a bell. Hither 
also they repair to form parties, as chance or inclination points, 
some to cross the water to serpentine walk, to climb the craggy 
cliff; others to ride on horseback, or in carriages ; others again for 
cards. — Generally after supper cards or dancing fill up the space to 
time of repose. Their lonely situation contributes not a little to 
inspire all with a desire to promote mutual enjoyment, which is 
supposed to be met with here in this retired soHtary retreat in a 
more extensive degree than in any other place of public resort 
through England. Here are manufactured neatly polished pieces, 
in the fancy way, of Derbyshire spar, stone, etc. Judge Sewall 
and myself bought each a sugar-basin and cream-bucket, edged with 
gilt pinchbeck, and ladles with metal handles of the same, having 
bought an egg-cup and pair of salts before at the Peak. 

After dinner, departed over a fine turnpike^ reaching to the 
town of Derby, distant sixteen miles, which we measured in two 

32 



250 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1780. 

hours, and alighted at the " King's Head" inn. Here we met a 
singular phenomenon in the person of John Tompson, a waiter at 
this inn for forty-three years ; the fifteen years immediately pre- 
ceding the present service porter to Sir Robert Sutton, and the 
eleven years before that to the Earl of Ferrars. He is now eighty- 
seven, and although somewhat decrepit and stooping, carries no 
mark of age in his face, that still retains a rubicund complexion 
without a single wrinkle. His memory, and indeed all his facul- 
ties appear in full vigor. The Ferrars family show a respect for 
their former servant by sending a carriage for him now and then, 
especially at Christmas and holiday times, when he is made wel- 
come ; and " so late as last Christmas," said he, " I danced from 
eleven to four o'clock there, and good music inspires me with vigor 
to acquit myself to the satisfaction of ray partners, and makes me, 
for the while, return to youth." 

Derby, June 16. After breakfast we all repaired with a con- 
ductor to the silk mills, for which this town is famed, these being 
the originals of this kind of manufactures in England, having been 
introduced from Italy in a surreptitious manner by Sir Thomas 
Lambe. At twelve we departed for Burton on Trent, thence to 
" George" inn, Lichfield, and from thence to Birmingham, where 
stopped at the " Hen and Chickens," High-street. Soon after our 
arrival, S. Sewall and myself sallied forth, leaving the judge, reluc- 
tant to exercise, to entertain himself. It seems that sitting by the 
window, he espied a countryman of ours, resident here, passing by ; 
on opening the casement, the other seeing him, came over and re- 
mained with him till our return. He called again, accompanied 
by Mr. Elisha Hutchinson, son of our late governor, who together 
passed an hour and then departed ; the former inviting us to dine 
next day, promising to accompany us to the manufactories. 

June 17. Soon after breakfast. Judge Oliver, being the 
other countryman before mentioned, agreeably to last evening's 
promise, came and in a post-chaise accompanied us to Bolton and 
Fothergill's manufactory, called Soho, about two miles out of 
town, for gun-barrel boring by a fire engine. From thence to a 
ramble modo pedestri, and afterwards to Judge Oliver's to dinner, 
and at tea Mr. Hutchinson joined us ; in the evening went over to 
Mr. Lakin's. 



1780.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 251 

June 18. Soon after breakfast, Judge Sewall's impatience to 
be gone hurried us into a post-chaise, taking the road to Wolver- 
hampton, distant from hence fourteen miles, passing through Wed- 
nesbury, where' the coal-pits are that supply Birmingham with 
coals ; we arrived at Wolverhampton in three hours. The town 
contains one church, the parish is fifteen miles in length, reaching 
near Lichfield. It is a deanery, and has a vicar or curate, salary 
from only <£20 to jG50, notwithstanding the pomposity of the 
churches ; — this is annexed to Windsor. From hence to Shiffnal, 
our next stage, is twelve miles; thence to Bronckton, a village, 
three miles from last inn, and to Brosely three miles, where we 
supped and lodged. 

June 19. Mr. Corbit, surgeon, coming to our inn in order to 
fulfil a promise of last night, accompanied us in a post-chaise, pro- 
cured and ready against his arrival ; entering the vehicle, our first 
visit was to the porcelain manufactory, noted for its fine Nankin 
blue color, no other colors attempted here ', — lately was sent off, 
as we were told by one of the burners, a complete set or table ser- 
vice for the royal table, a sample whereof we saw ; from hence 
directed our course to the iron bridge. For a more perfect view 
of this curious and singular piece of pontal architecture, we returned 
back as many miles as the day's journey consisted of; and the 
world affords not its like : a bridge perfect in all its parts, com- 
posed entirely of cast iron. It is laid over the Severn, from a town 
in Shropshire, called Brosely, to Colebrook-dale side, and adjoining 
a truly romantic spot noted for coal mines and iron stone, where- 
with it abounds. Dined at the inn, company same as last evening j 
afterwards we all together walked to Surgeon Corbit's, our guide 
and attendant ; S. Sewall and myself drank coffee with his spouse. 
Leaving this house. Judge Sewall and myself returned to the inn, 
where I passed a heavy, sleepy evening ; S. Sewall was engaged 
in loyally celebrating General Clinton's success at Charleston, by 
discharging a two-pounder half loaded several times in a private 
garden ! The town of Brosely, where we now are, is long and 
straggling ; the houses seem to owe their present situation to mere 
chance ; in general it has a dark, sooty, dirty look, few only of the 
houses in decent style. 

June 20. Having accomplished the object of our return, and 



252 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1780. 

being accommodated with a post-chaise, took our departure, and in 
an hour were set down at Bridgenorth, having determined to take 
passage on the Severn to Worcester at thirty miles from this; this 
variety in mode of travelhng an agreeable one^ especially as the 
fare is but one shilling and sixpence, which consideration has 
weight with those whose bank begins to ebb fast, having already 
measured, of turnpike chiefly, almost five hundred miles. Adjusted 
all with the master for passage next day, the interval between the 
present hour and time of rest was chequered by eating, drinking, 
walking, and playing at backgammon. 

June 21. Entered our conveyance, which we found common 
and for commodities instead of a passage boat; filled with wool and 
bulky articles some feet above the gunwale, leaving us and one 
fellow passenger but scanty room in stern sheets. First delay 
was at Brindley ; here we refreshed with a collation ; next at 
Stourport at junction of the great Staffordshire canal with Severn ; 
at six o'clock landed at Worcester, just below old bridge. Jumped 
on shore, leaving companions and baggage, who, before they left 
the banks of the river, engaged to-morrow's passage to Gloucester, 
nearly same distance. From boat adjourned to the " Hop-pole" 
inn ; soon after Mr. J. Vassal entered, we being seen by his ser- 
vant ; he is on his return from Birmingham, having been there on 
a reconnoitering plan, and speaks of it with the greatest dislike as 
a dirty, ill-built hole. So different are men's tastes that my com- 
panions make it daily a subject of their praises. For my own part 
I think it deserves neither extravagant praises, much less execra- 
tions. It is of an amazing extent, all its new streets spacious and 
straight, and not ill-built ; here are many excellent buildings, and 
London itself does not exhibit a more spacious and well-built one 
than Newhall-street, though its paving is not of best quality. Be- 
spoke beds and supper, and left the inn for a ramble ; directed 
course to new bridge and then to Castle Mount, seeming a work of 
art, of a regular form, agreeable walk to the top or flat about 
eighteen feet over, having evergreens around its border. Hence 
returned back to inn. We partook of a splendid supper, which, 
with other acts of a different complexion from the late adopted 
plan of economy, shows that inconsistency is a common fault among 
frail men. 



1780.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 253 

June 22. At twelve departed, our boat more lumbered and 
dirty than before, and passengers of still meaner sort ; and it 
having taken three hours to arrive at a landing within three miles 
of Upton, to which we walked by land, distance passed by water 
being just seven miles from Gloucester. Under such ill-omened 
circumstances were discouraged from proceeding further by water, 
and therefore on arrival of boat, ordering out our baggage, and 
taking, as the sailors phrase it, London tack on board, proceeded 
to next stage of fifteen miles, called Newport, where changed 
horses. Our home is distant from this place eighteen miles ; at 
three or four hundred yards without turnpike-gate at the head of 
Stokes, we crossed a short thick foot-pad, who, running out from 
under hedges, seized the reins of our horses, threatening instant 
death to the driver if he did not stop ; whereupon he stopped, and 
giving up the reins, ran to chaise door and was going to demand 
our money, when S. Sewall supposing him only a rude fellow, 
raising himself forward, made a push at him with his cane ; at 
which the pad retreated back a few paces, discharging his pistol at 
same instant, and ran off, presuming he had executed his threat, 
which was, " damn you, I'll do for you." Judge Sewall thought 
he perceived the wind of the bullet as it passed ; be that as it may, 
it was found next morning. It grazed the moulding, which di- 
verted it from a course that otherwise must have entered S. Sewall's 
body, but how his head escaped is inconceivable ; it pierced 
through the lining and lodged between it and leather top, proving 
a slug near three quarters of an inch long, and was picked up next 
morning. Thursday evening, June 22, concluded a journey of five 
hundred miles in eighteen days. 

TO MR. JOHN TIMMINS, LONDON. 

Bristol, June 24, 1780. 
Dear Sir : 

I take the earliest opportunity after my excursion of eighteen 
days to acknowledge the receipt of yours. I hope the execrable 
mob in London is thoroughly quelled, and the promoters of it in 
safe custody, ready for the execution of deserved justice ; I wish 
government may arrive at the bottom of this infernal plot, for that 
there was one, no man in his senses can doubt. Through the great 



254 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1780. 

extent of country we passed during its rage, there appeared an 
universal detestation against them ; though should the flame catch 
at some populous places, there are villains enough to be found 
ready to join in plunder, rapine, murder and burning. 

Very truly yours, 

S. CURWEN. 

June 30. Walked to the quay to find a vessel bound to White- 
haven, intending, if practicable, a water conveyance to Workington, 
in Cumberland. 

Jvly 6. Foot-pad taken in Bath-road ; Judge Sewall seeing 
him thinks he is the one that attacked us. 

July 8. Met Mr. R. Hallowell, who informed me of his going 
to London. Received a letter from J. R., inclosing one from 
R. Ward, Salem, by Isa. White, via Amsterdam. 

TO WILLIAM BROWNE, ESQ., COWBRIDGE, WALES. 

Bristol, July 13, 1780. 
Dear Sir : 

By two letters from Salem, one from our friend William 
Pynchon, of May 3, via Amsterdam, I am informed of the death of 
Mr. McGilchrist on the 20th of the former month ; a man of un- 
dissembled virtue and singular integrity, and the most friendly 
heart ; to whose memory 1 cannot fail to pay the tribute of a tear. 
Besides whom, the late ranting patriot J. W. is also gone to the 
former generations. As for the rest, all our friends are well and 
longing, but as almost without hope, for the good old times, as is 
the common saying now, except among those, as he expresses it, 
whose enormous heaps have made them easy and insolent, and to 
wish for a continuance of those confusions by which they grow 
rich. Our friend wishes to hear from you and other of our towns- 
men and friends here. If you are disposed to oblige in this way, 
a letter inclosed to my care, left at the New England CofFee- 
House, London, soon to be my residence, shall be forwarded. I 
am far from being sanguine of essential good effects from Clinton's 
success. 

Truly yours, 

S. CuRWEN. 



1780.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 255 

TO WILLIAM PYNCHON, ESQ. 

Bristol, July 15, 1780. 
Dear Sir : 

This may serve to inform you of the receipt of your favor of 
May 3, and to convey my acknowledgments therefor ; nor do I 
know any favors more deserving of thanks than letters from distant 
friends and acquaintance j in truth, I think, Solomon never uttered 
more truth, or discovered more knowledge of mankind, than in the 
following proverb : " Good news from a far country is as cold wa- 
ter to a thirsty soul." To be made acquainted with the welfare of 
my friends is among the first and warmest wishes of my heart, nor 
doth it feel more pleasurable sensations than are derived from that 
source. Since my last, the political state of affairs seems in many peo- 
ple's opinion to have taken a more favorable turn for this country, but 
good and ill often succeed each other in the whirl of human affairs 
in quick succession ; for amidst a deal of good news daily pouring 
in from abroad, a most tremendous cloud suddenly and unlooked for 
arose and covered our horizon, threatening instant destruction even to 
the very being of government itself. For some days it was feared 
the city of London w^ould be laid in ashes, during w^hich the most 
abandoned and profligate miscreants that were ever nourished by, 
or have proved the curse of society, were to have availed them- 
selves of the conflagration and terror occasioned thereby, and plun- 
dered what the less cruel felons might have spared, perhaps mur- 
dering those against whom their spite might have been levelled. On 
the day that the petition of the Protestant associators, as they denomi- 
nated themselves, was to be presented to the house, the subscribers 
were by an advertisement of Lord George Gordon, their president, 
desired to meet in St. George's Fields ; the reason alleged was, 
that no building in London was large enough to hold the expected 
numbers, and from thence to accompany him w^ith the petition to 
the house — meaning by so numerous an appearance to give weight 
to it, or enforce it more effectually. The rabble, many of whom 
were signers, likely enough for the most villainous purposes, for 
with such the more mischief the better sport, joined, makino- no 
less a number, it is credibly said, than forty thousand -, a number 
of such characters, and under such circumstances, truly alarming ; 



256 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1780. 

from hence they paraded through the borough of Southwark and 
along London streets, at first it is said orderly, but no sooner had 
they reached palace yard than they filled that and all the avenues 
leading to the house. Throwing off the mask, they bawled aloud 
for liberty and the Protestant religion ; and now their insolence 
began, for many members of both houses undistinguishingly re- 
ceived marks of their indignant rage ; some were stopped and 
threatened, otherwise abused and assaulted, pulled out of their car- 
riages, and glad to get off without hats, wigs, with lacerated gar- 
ments and flesh-wounds ; w^hilst many were happy to retreat unhurt 
and absent themselves from the house for that day at least. The 
distinguishing badge they wore was a blue cockade, which the 
president, Lord George, had the boldness to wear in his hat to the 
house, but being espied, he was desired, nay, even menaced, and 
with reluctance suffered it to be taken out. The most sober, and 
many such, doubtless, there were among them, retired peaceably 
and in good order ; but the rabble, by far the greater number, 
having raised themselves into a frenzy, for fire you know is kindled 
by collision, adjourned, resolving to plunder and destroy the houses 
of those who from liberal principles had promoted a relaxation of 
the supposed too great rigor of the act of William and Mary against 
papists, that had been for many months the occasion of a paper 
war on the subject, and excited a real or pretended terror in the 
minds of many who were, or affected to be, afraid of the increase and 
prevalence of popery. The houses of these and some unoffending 
Roman Catholics fell a sacrifice the first day to their rapine and 
malice ; what became not plunder, was destroyed, or devoted to 
the flames. In the number were Sir George Saville's, a most wor- 
thy character, a steady whig, and an anti-ministerialist, but being 
a friend to taxation, and a man of property, was a suitable subject, 
and worthy of these sons of liberty and supporters of the Protestant 
cause to exercise their patriotism upon. 

The second day, Lord Mansfield's house employed their patriotic 
labor ; his valuable library, pictures, and household goods, to the 
amount of near thirty thousand pounds, were plundered, broken, 
destroyed and devoted to the flames ; — among other things, was a 
large collection of manuscripts on various subjects, of immense loss 
to the world, it is said. In short, as Lord Loughborough, late Mr. 



1780.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 257 

Wedderburne, says, seventy-two houses and four prisons are now 
lying in ruins ; of the latter, the fine new building of Newgate-^ 
street prison, King's Bench, Clerkenwell, and Surry Bridewell ; 
from whence were let loose all the debtors and felons who assisted 
in promoting those atrocious crimes, for which they were soon to 
have suffered the justice of the laws. Had they directed their aim 
at the Bank the first or second day of their rage, it is to be feared 
they might have annihilated the books, papers, and records : — a 
blow that might have shaken government to its centre, and in- 
volved the nation in evils too horrid to mention. The third day it 
was attacked ; providentially, the fate of a score or two, and a 
strong party of dragoons and light-horse surrounding the palla- 
dium, saved it from the merciless claws of these ravening wolves. 
For three or four days, ten to fifteen houses were seen at one time 
in the centre of the metropolis lighted up by design ; and to com- 
plete this most abhorred plan of destruction, a design was formed* 
to cut off the new river pipes, but, in the moment of execution, it 
was most happily prevented. 

Thus this great city and the government are still preserved, 
monuments of divine forbearance : — it hath pleased Him who saith 
to the boisterous waves of the sea, " hitherto shalt thou come, and 
no further," to put a stop to the rage and madness of the people, 
and for the present to control the malicious designs of our inveterate 
enemies; for, that the ravages of the late banditti took their rise 
from abroad, has a face of probability. Though I cannot take upon 
me to warrant the following or any paragraph in the newspapers 
to be the word of Apollo, it is yet confidently asserted in them, 
that " a gentleman lately arrived from Holland has affirr/ied that 
he heard the French ambassador there declare openly, that London 
would be laid in ashes within a month." So deep was the plan, 
and so seriously in earnest to ensure complete destruction, that 
such situations and kinds of business were pitched upon, as afforded 
the most combustible materials for supplying a fierce flame, as 
oil-dealers, distillers, w^arehouses, &c. ; but a kind interposing Pro- 
vidence stopped the devouring fire, and all is now once again 
settled, quiet, and, it is to be hoped, safe. To secure w^hich, and 
overawe the profligate and daring, enough of whom all great cities 
abound in, a large encampment is still continued in Hyde Park of 

33 



258 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1780. 

light-horse, dragoons and foot, and are to be kept up during the 
summer ; besides a party (notwithstanding the city mayor and 
patriotic gentry's remonstrance about city rights,) patrolling and 
keeping guard in London, to the great annoyance and terror of the 
turbulent and dangerous. 

Bath and Bristol were intended to have been theatres whereon 
to have exhibited the future acts of the same tragedy. At the 
former, the Roman Catholic chapel and the priest's house were 
purged of all their effects that fell within the claws of these de- 
structive harpies, and the combut-tibles they committed to the unre- 
lenting flames : but a party of the Hereford mihtia, and a troop of 
dragoons, being at callable distance, seasonably arrived to prevent 
further mischief. The latter city, by a vigorous internal police 
taking early precautions, dispersed a threatening storm ; three or 
four hundred banditti, collected in St. James's parish in this city 
for the patriotic purpose of rapine and burning, were, by a well 
timed early association, scattered and driven back to their dens ; 
all the well disposed arming and patrolling through the streets for 
several nights. During this miscreantic insurrection, Judge Sewall, 
Samuel Sewall, and myself, were on an excursion in the country, 
wherein we dropped on the abode of our townsfolks, Samuel Por- 
ter and Captain Poynton ; the former carrying indelible marks of 
personal identity, the latter of an amazingly increased bulk and 
gouty habit ; their present abode is Shrewsbury. I rather envy 
than lament our worthy friend, Mr. McGilchrist, who is now in a 
more peaceable neighborhood, I dare say, than that he has quitted, 
and I fancy vpithout regret ; would that you and I were with him, 
resting, perhaps, in undisturbed quiet till the last grand tribunal 
scene shall open, and restore the sleeping dust to life and activity ; 
or, perhaps, roving in the unbounded fields of immensity, exploring 
and admiring the astonishing operations of omnipotence. 

Know you that the two great objects of American odium are 
now no more : — GTovernor Bernard died some time since, and 
lately Governor Hutchinson | ^utjdenly, as he was stepping into 
his carriage. 

Mr. Timmins has recovered from a very severe fit of sickness, 
and has taken up his residence with his family at Chelsea, for the 
benefit of the air. My future abode will be at London, or its 



1780.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 259 

neighborhood. Letters will reach me there addressed to be left at 
the New England CofFee-House, Threadneedle-street. 

With great esteem, your assured friend, 

S. CURWEN. 

July 16. Attended worship at College; Mr. Porvis, one of 
the prebends, preached a very ingenious discourse ; afterwards I 
was told it was not of his own composing ; as it is not an unusual 
custom among the Episcopal clergy to read others' performances 
in the pulpit. Afternoon saw Mr. Coates, who repeated his son's 
invitation to tea, and on returning home, finding no one waiting 
for me there, directed my footsteps to Bank-terrace, meeting a mul- 
titude, as is ever the custom on pleasant Sundays. 

July 18. From this day we have an addition to our family of 
my countryman Nicholas Lechmere ; supped with him and a friend 
of his named Maddocks. 

July 19. Just finished a long letter to my friend Mr. Pynchon, 
inclosing Lord Loughborough's speech to grand jury on St. Mar- 
garet's hill at the trial of some of the London rioters. 

July 23. Afternoon walked with N. Lechmere over Durdham 
Down to Ostrick ; crossed over to Cooke's Folly, a tower on the 
banks of the Avon. 

July 30. Drank tea at Mr. R, Lechmere's and after a social 
tete-a-tete walked with him, and lady and daughter and brother to 
College Green, where joined four Americans. Wrote to advise my 
friend Timmins of my intention to bid adieu to Bristol, and make 
London my residence till I shall be no more, for I despair of ever 
leaving this island. 

August 2. By invitation dined at Mr. R. Lechmere's with 
Admiral Graves' lady, etc. 

August 3. Mr. N. Lechmere accompanied me to the stage for 
Bath, where took leave. Found a female of fourteen only passen- 
ger. At Temple-gate were joined by the well known Mr. Heathin, 
late of Honiton in Devonshire, with his maiden sister ; the former 
very loquacious, who without partiality seems a compound of strong 
sense, knowledge, vivacity and vanity. ****** jyjy attention 
was drawn to his reading the quack doctor's speech to the gaping 
mob, his attendants, in Launcelot Greaves, written by the late Dr. 



260 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1780. 

Smollet ; he solicited my interest with Mr. Nathaniel White, whose 
preaching I had attended, and proposed still to attend at old Jewry, 
in order to procure for him the use of his meeting-house on Sunday 
evenings for lecture. At six o'clock alighted at Castle inn, Market- 
street, Bath. After tea, taking a ramble met my said loquacious 
fellow-traveller ; joining me, proceeded to a long walk in a lonely 
road, of which he seemed glad to avail himself to recount his own 
adventures. 

Bath, August 4. Arose at seven o'clock, and joined by a Mr. 
Graves, a young clergyman of Suffolk, whose obliging, social be- 
havior rendered him an agreeable companion. On the road, about 
half way to our first stage, a parson named Goddard overtaking us, 
alighted from his own horse, delivered it to a servant, and entered 
our carriage, adding a third to our company. For the first half 
hour, our two Oxonians kept to themselves the whole conversation, 
wherein were disclosed many clerical and academic tales, stories, 
and anecdotes ; among others I recollect the following : — Dr. 
Barton, dean of Bristol and rector of St. Andrews, Holborn, who 
was, according to British mode of expression, dark, meaning stone- 
blind, being of a humorous disposition and great self-command, 
having a mind to entertain himself, invited four eminent persons in 
the same desolate condition as he was, to a dinner, none other being- 
present but the servants. These were Sir John Fielding, of as 
eminent a character in the juridical line as perhaps any man in 
the civilized world ; Mr. Stanley, the well known musician, and 
others whose names I forget. After partaking of a joyous feast, 
they took a humorous leave and departed. At eleven o'clock we 
ahghted at the Black Lion in Devizes, where, after taking refresh- 
ment, I walked forth to ramble, and espied a sign, for quaintness of 
its device here noted. On the sign were painted five men, well 
known by the name of the "^ye alls ;" the first in order, accord- 
ing to present mode of arrangement of church before king, stands 
the parson in his sacerdotalibus ; he prays for all : second, the 
lawyer, in his gown, band, and tie-wig ; he, pleads for all : third, 
the soldier in uniform, with a fierce countenance; he fights for all: 
fourth is a physician, with great wig and solemn phiz, and boluses 
and julips in his hand ; he kills or cures all : the fifth and last is the 
farmer, with his settled, thoughtful countenance; he pays for all. 



1780.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 261 

Leaving this place, with fresh horses, arrived at " Great CastW'' 
inn, Marlborough, at tvs^o o'clock; distant thirty-two miles from 
Bath. This inn is famous through England for grandeur of struc- 
ture, it having been a nobleman's mansion-house ; the excellence 
and expensiveness of its accommodations, provisions, etc., are of 
the highest style. Passed grounds wherein is a mount made by 
art, the ascent to the summit in a spiral line of so gentle a rising as 
to be imperceptible, in length half a mile, though encompassing it 
but four times. The mount does not exceed a hundred feet diame- 
ter, nor more in height ; the top is a plain, planted with trees, from 
which is to be seen a distant view of the town, consisting of one 
long street and a few short ones at right angles. 

Newbury, our next stage, is a long town, consisting of buildings 
in middle and lower style, decent and in good repair ; has one 
Episcopal church and four dissenting meeting-houses. Its inhabit- 
ants are avowed friends of American liberty, and disavowers of the 
war. Departed hence at seven o'clock, slept at the " George 
inn," Reading, a large, handsome, well-built town, principal of 
this fine county (Berkshire) ; from hence to Colebrook, where I 
stayed again and dined; then travelled my last stage, London, be- 
ing set down at the Swan inn, Holborn bridge, at the end of Fleet- 
market, at six o'clock. After a short rest, daylight still remaining, 
as it did some hours after, I walked forth to view the ruins of Mr. 
Langdale's house, etc., almost adjoining the inn ; proceeding forward 
to Newgate, but little distance, which was lying in a deplorable 
state of ruin, destroyed by the mob. I returned back to my inn, 
filled with honest but fervid indignation, which ought to warm the 
breast of every peaceable well wisher to order, laws, safety, and the 
rights of individuals : sleep put an end to my mortifying reflections. 



262 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1780. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

London, Aug. 8. Engaged lodgings at Mrs. Councel's, No. 22 
Castle-street, Falcon -square. 

TO HON. JONATHAN SEWALL, BRISTOL. 

London, Mg. 14, 1780. 
Dear Sir : 

I have been told by Mr. Jos. Green and his wife, and with such 
an air of serious earnestness as to lead me almost into a belief of it, 
that advice had last Saturday been brought to town by a vessel 
said to have arrived from America, that on the 19th of May, the 
moon being just then beyond the full, the sky clear and unclouded 
at sunrise, and to all appearance promising a fine bright day, con- 
tinuing some time in this state, when all at once a sudden darkness 
overspread the face of the heavens, and so palpably thick was it, 
that candles were lighted in the houses during its continuance till 
three o'clock in the afternoon, to conduct the common concerns 
and intercourse of life. A short interval of light or twilight ensued, 
but was succeeded by a tenfold darker night than was ever known. 
Perhaps I am misinformed ; if you have not heard of this extra- 
ordinary and uncommon phenomenon, suspend your belief till bet- 
ter or no information follows, or in the former case a fuller and 
more particular relation shall be made. Time, the great revealer 
of secret things, will soon convince you of its truth or falsehood. I 
am not myself determined in my opinion ; the belief of uncommon 
events requires strong evidence ; should this be true, you have 
astrologers, soothsayers, magicians, and wise men enough among 
you to explain its meaning. 

Very truly, your friend, 

S. CURWEN. 



1780.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 263 

TO COL. WILLIAM BROWNE, COWBRIDGE. 

London, August 16, 1780. 
Dear Sir : 

The contents of my last were chiefly to acquaint you of the re- 
ceipt of a letter from our common friend, Mr. Pynchon, dated 
Salem, May 3. I shall now give you a part in his own words : 
" I am pleased at having so safe a conveyance, but should be more 
so could I write with freedom ; as I cannot, you will make allow- 
ances for my scrawl. I may, however, acquaint you that your 
family and friends are in health, and bear with cheerfulness and 
fortitude the rubs, jostlings and vexations of turbulent times ; they 
are wishing to see you, to tell you a hundred things which might 
make you laugh, admire, and sometimes stare. During the winter 
we have been blocked up with snow ; the oldest inhabitant re- 
members not such quantities of it on the earth at any one time. 
But we are now thawed out, and begin to rejoice that the price of 
wood is fallen from $4,50 to $3,00 a cord. Had other necessa- 
ries been proportionably dear, some of us might well wish for a 
return of the good old times, as they are now called ; and those 
whose enormous heaps have made them easy and insolent, might 
wish for a continuance of the confusions by which they grew in 
the Frenchman's style, " horrihlement riches.''^ Our worthy friend 
Mr. M'Gilchrist foretold that he should not live to see an end of it, 
and feared that few of his old friends would ; he has gone into the 
vale, a true prophet — he left us on the 20th April. His patience 
and fortitude continued to the last ; his sickness and death were of 
a piece with his life, and that you know was a lesson of virtue. 
He delayed making his will a little too long ; some of his preju- 
dices and resentments appeared on that occasion. He gave to 
" the Society for propagation of the gospel in foreign parts" all 
arrears coming to him, being three years' salary, and his part of 
the donation made for missionaries who had suffered in these times. 
I often wish to hear of Col. Browne and others of our town - 
men and friends there." 

In answer to a letter of mine some time ago, mentioning the 
evils of exile at my time of life, he says, " What would your feel- 
ings have been, my good friend, if while here you had lost your 
business, all your debts, the fruits of many years' labor , had been 



264 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1780. 

driven to sell your house and land for the payment of debts and ex- 
penses, and the remainder had sunk in your hands fifty per cent ; and 
that though thus reduced, you could not freely nor safely walk the 
streets by reason of party rage and malevolence, and the uncon- 
trolled Vancor of some men." A vv^retched and truly pitiable 
condition this ! a just picture, I fear, of American popular liberty. 
Dr. Charles Russell died at Antigua last June, and his brother 
James, who by lucky captures by a letter of marque has realized 
fifteen thousand pounds sterling, is soon to be settled a Bristol 
merchant, and bound in the matrimonial chain to Mr. R. Lech- 
mere's second daughter, Mary, whom I think a fine, well accom- 
plished lady. Mr. Jo. Green and wife told me the story of a dark 
day having occurred in New England, on the 19th of May, such as 
was never before known ; — in order to maintain the common in- 
tercourse of life, candles were lighted and kept burning. For my 
own part, though I am no believer in omens, I cannot but take this to 
be a most extraordinary and terrifying event. Darkness, in the onei- 
rocritic art, denotes distress, anguish, trouble, loss, sickness, death, 
and the whole train of evils, physical and moral. Perhaps the 
fearful among our country folks may find in themselves a disposi- 
tion to be reconciled to the thoughts of a reconnection with this 
country, which seems more likely to force terms on them than 
since this foolish, needless, baneful quarrel commenced. 

Here, or in this neighborhood, I propose to continue till I shall 
take my flight to the upper regions, or descend to the shades below ; 
for I am quite unsettled in my own mind whether a state of activity 
or insensibility shall fill up the interval between death and the fu- 
ture state of endless existence. 

My respectful compliments wait on Mrs. Browne and son ; and 
ardently wishing you and them the highest fehcity, I remain, 
With great esteem, 

Your faithful friend, 

S. CURWEN. 

P. S. Mr. Francis Waldo, who will soon be with you, will 
inform you of the troop of New Englanders resident in Bristol. 

August 18. Took a long, solitary ramble through Charter- 
house-square, thence through Gray's-Inn-lane to Clerkenwell-green, 



1780.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 265 

wherein is a building not before seen or heard about, called New 
Hicks Hall, or Middlesex Sessions House, a large and handsome 
structure; thence through Sraithfield and Long-lane, a narrow, dis- 
mal, dirty street, to Aldersgate-street. 

August 19. Called at Francis Waldo's lodgings in Pall Mall, 
and at Arthur Savage's in T3rompton-row, and left a card for the 
absentees ; not a little jaded by the circuraambulation. 

Jiugust 20. At Westminster Abbey ; the vergers not thinking 
proper to offer me a seat, I left the choir, and, like the multitude, 
passed the hour of devotion in gazing at the monuments and read- 
ing inscriptions. From thence passing through cloisters, pro- 
ceeded to Dean's court, inclosed in part by Westminster school 
buildings ; returning back, stayed in choir during part of prayer 
and sermon, and passed half an hour in poet's corner. Thence to 
St. Margaret's church, the preacher having just then ascended the 
pulpit ; I was minded to stay, but these church-servants neglecting 
to open a pew door for me, I soon departed homewards. 

August 23. To artillery-ground to view manoeuvres of the 
military association, who performed manual exercises, firings, and 
evolutions commendably. My curiosity, though still active, is soon 
satisfied ; nor do I find a more convincing proof of its increasing 
imbecility, if the expression be not improper, than in this par- 
ticular. 

FROM HON. JONATHAN SEWALL. 

Bristol, August 22, 1780. 
Dear Sir : 

By a letter from Mr. Waldo to Mr. Simpson, the account of 
the miraculous darkness at Boston had reached Bristol before I was 
favored with yours. The story I firmly believe to be true, but like 
many Jewish stories in the Old Testament, I take it not in sl literal, 
but in a metaphorical or allegorical sense. Take it as an allegory, 
and it is easily to be credited ; but as this kind of writing is now 
become rather obsolete, it is necessary to premise, that under the 
present tyranny in America, no man there dares write upon politi- 
cal subjects in plain English ; if he writes at all, it must be in 
dark enigmas, and in this scriptural style I presume the letter from 

34 



266 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1780. 

•which you derive your intelhgence is written. Interpret it thus 
The writer wished to let his friend here know what effect the news 
of the reduction of Charleston had upon the minds of the Boston 
rebels, (or saints, if you like that word better,) but he dared not 
communicate his intelligence in a language intelligible to all, and 
therefore chose to give it in an allegory, trusting to the sagacity of 
his friend, who, being a New England saint, as I presume, he 
doubted not was well enough versed in Old Testament allegories, 
to translate it into literal English, and thus it is : — On the 19th of 
May, by a private hand, the news arrived of the surrender of 
Charleston, and though at sunrise the sky was clear, and promised 
a fine day, i. e., they were till that morning assured Clinton would 
be defeated, yet this fatal news at once darkened their bright pros- 
pect and induced a gloomy horror, so that candles were lighted in 
their houses, — i. e., Adams, Hancock, Dr. Cooper, and other rebel 
leaders went from house to house to assure the people the news 
could not be true. This was the short interval of light, or twilight, 
that ensued; but soon after, on the same day, or perhaps the next, 
(for allegories, you know, do not and need not go on all fours,) 
an express arrived with an official account confirming the dark 
tale, and then the twilight was succeeded by a tenfold darkness — 
a dark horror and blackness of despair fell on all. This is my in- 
terpretation. Si quid novisti rectius istis, candidics imperii ; si won, 
his utere mecvm* It is consoling, pro tempore, at least. In my 
sense of the story, you are not hummed nor misinformed, but you 
only, hke many other commentators, misinterpret. 

I cannot devise the meaning of your quaint device at thedevizes, 
unless the Jive alls intend five shoemakers, but this seems too 
far-fetched to deserve even the epithet of" quaint 5" perhaps were 
I to see the figures in their characteristic attitudes, I might make a 
better guess ; but with my present data, I give it up, and wish you 
would explain it, or if you choose to try my genius at expounding 
enigmatical paintings, which, I assure you, is but a sorry one, give 
me the characteristic attitudes ; paint it to me as it is, and I'll try 
again. 

I am mightily pleased with the news of the day : La Nymphe 

• " Pray adopt it ; unless you can suggest a better one." 



1780.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 267 

taken by the Flora, which must be true, and the French seventy- 
four gun ship by the Bienfaisant, which, as I always hope the best, 
I hope is true ; besides a frigate taken and carried into Halifax, 
which I likewise hope is true. I rejoice also that Admiral Geary 
is arrived in the Channel. I hope the eighteen Russian men-of- 
war will be taken into safe custody, and held till we are sure they 
can do no mischief. Were I his Majesty's premier, I would not 
for a moment trust a b of a queen, who could murder her hus- 
band and mount his throne — there's no trusting such a jade ; if she 
means fair, her ships are safe in our hands ; if, on the other hand, 
as is most probable, she means, in conjunction with France and 
Spain, to play the devil, obsta principiis ought to be our motto. 
Nip her in the bud, secure these eighteen ships, and her marine 
power is annihilated — and considering the brimstone, besides mur- 
dering her husband which I would never forgive, has been the in- 
stigatrix of the northern association, why the deuce should we 
stand upon ceremony with her? Why should England regard the 
laws of nations, while every power in Europe is setting them at 
defiance ? No, no. Providence, or their evil genius, has put 
them into our hands, and all nature will ridicule us if we let them 
escape. I hope his Majesty, God bless him. Lord North, Lord 
Sandwich, and all the lords of the council, God bless them all, seethe 
thing in the light I do j if they do, I am sure the Czarina's eighteen 
ships will soon be manned by British seamen, and added to the 
British fleet. Her consummate impudence in sending her fleet into 
our harbors, after the infamous step she has taken, and our own 
security, the first of all laws, will amply justify us. Tell Lord North 
what I say when you see him next. 

1 should not have troubled you with my scolding at the Empress 
of Russia, (against whom I have no personal enmity, except a lit- 
tle for the murder of her husband, which I think concerns all hus- 
bands,) had I not learned when I got half down the other side, 
that Danforth goes for London on Thursday, by whom I can send 
this, so that a cover will cost you nothing. 

With very little malice against the Czarina, and none against 
any other of God's creation, I am your sincere friend and humble 
servant, J. Sewall^ 

Mr. Curwen. 



268 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1780. 

FROM HON. WILLIAM BROWNE. 

Cowbridge, Wales, August 22, 1780. 
Dear Sir : 

I give you many thanks for your kind favor just received, and 
gladly avail myself of your kindness to ibrward the inclosed, as ad- 
dressed. I have also to acknowled^^e the receipt of two former 
letters, which have long lain before me, waiting for spirits to sup- 
port the ennui of wiiling a single line. In short, to tell you a 
truth, our prospects with regard to America were till lately so un- 
promising, my finances were so small, my family and expenses so 
increased, that, added to the common catalogue of vexations which 
attach themselves to us all, more or less, every exertion became a 
burden, and I had nothing to do to be easy but to do nothing and 
care for nobody. Better expectations have produced better spirits, 
and brought with them better dispositions. It is with pleasure then 
that I wish to revive a correspondence with an old and much 
esteemed friend. It has puzzled all the wise men of Cowbridge to 
divine from what part of London you have dated your letter ; va- 
rious are the conjectures, some humorous and some plausible, but 
none satisfactory ; so we have agreed to suspend our speculations 
until we could consult the inhabitant of this unknown region. 

I thank you for the extract from Mr. Pynchon's letter. A de- 
tail of their sufferings would give us pain if they were all strangers; 
how much more then when we have so many friends among them ? 
It brings, however, this pleasing reflection, that we made a wise 
choice in leaving them. When you have collected an authentic 
and satisfactory account of the phenomenon you mention to have 
happened at Boston,* I wish you would communicate it, with its 
circumstances, consequences, and impressions, unless it should first 
appear in some public print. 

I think you do perfectly right to make choice of London for 
your residence the coming winter. It is the only place in which 
a single man can spend the gloomy months with any satisfaction. 
I wonder as much that more of our countrymen do not resort there 
at that season, as that so many of them continue there when they 

* Dark day. 



1780.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 269 

ought to be sporting in green fields and by the side of purling 
streams. Scd trahit sua quemque voluptas* 

I lately received a line from Mr. Porter, describing, in the most 
gaudy colors imaginable, the happiness to which his situation has 
introduced him, encouraging all the world to come to Shrewsbury, 
and promising every felicity that the golden age could ever boast 
of. What strange mortals we are ! Some men are always happy 
where they are, some where they have been, and some where they 
shall be; and yet we are none of us satisfied with either past, "pre- 
sent, or to come, I wish I could remove your doubts about the in- 
terval you mention, for then I could also administer some satisfac- 
tion to myself. At present I have only that of subscribing myself, 
dear sir, Your affectionate friend, 

Wm. Browne. 
Mr. Curwen. 

August 25. Visited the ruins of King's Bench prison and Sur- 
rey bridewell, sad proofs of popular folly and violence; the forme, 
repairing. 

TO THOMAS RUSSELL, ESQ., BOSTON. 

London, August 25, 1780. 
Dear Sir : 

I am ignorant in what light my silence to you may appear ; 
indeed, I am not satisfied of the propriety of it myself; however, I 
doubt not your candor, when I declare upon honor, that want of 
real esteem and regard was not in the remotest view a cause. 
Your obliging favor demanded an answer and thanks ; do not say 
it is too late now, for I now offer them with equal warmth and sin- 
cerity. I presume Lane and Fraser have long since informed you 
that I availed myself of your friendly offer, that did me an essential 
service; but having determined not to mention any circumstances 
relative to business in letters, for very obvious reasons, to which I 
have steadily adhered, you will therefore please to excuse any 
thing further on this head. Would that the safety of intercourse 
between the two countries by letter was greater, but God only 

* " Every one follows the bent of his own inclinations." 



270 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1780, 

knows when a period will be put to this execrably baneful war. 
I fear it is hardly arrived to half its length, unless this country 
gives up' the chase, for the obstinacy of the Americans supplies the 
want of resources. Yesterday news arrived of the most melancholy 
complexion. Our western-bound fleet, the convoy and one ship 
only excepted, fell into the hands of the French and Spaniards, 
consisting of forty-nine merchant ships, transports and victuallers, 
including five outward-bound East Indiamen. This is the most 
capital blow England ever felt by an enemy at sea ; particulars in 
papers that accompany this. 

******* 

Of the penchant of noble and wealthy ladies to vie with their 
partners of the other sex in the laudable pursuit of gaming, etc., 
take the following instance: At the time of my first arrival in 
London, a house opposite Governor Hutchinson's, in St. James'- 
street, was then finishing, called " Sgavoirvivre,'' being a gaming- 
house of the highest modern taste, perhaps much more magnificent 
in architecture and furniture than English America can boast, and 
designed for gentlemen exclusively. The ladies' pride being piqued, 
they bought up that which the governor lived in, and the two on 
either side of it, and though in excellent repair, demolished them, 
erecting in their room one in the same taste as its opposite neigh- 
bor ; and to this day these two temples are devoted to the worship 
of the blind deity, Fortune, on whose altars are nightly sacrificed 
thousands, besides the peace and support of many of her foolish 
and equally blind devotees. These, among a multitude of other 
instances, are proofs and memorials of the expensive taste and di- 
versions of this age and country. 

Messrs. Byles and Brattle having been refused a residence in 
their own country, renders my return (who I presume stand not so 
fair as either of them) more doubtful, or rather more impracticable ; 
and though it has ever been the first and the last wish of my heart 
to return, and you know that very well, I presume you think a per- 
mission not obtainable, having received no encouragement on that 
head. 

Most ardently and sincerely wishing you every blessing, I am, 
with love to Mrs. R. and little family, 

Your obliged friend, S. Curwen. 



1780.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 271 

FROM HON. JONATHAN SEWALL. 

Bristol, Mg. 24,1780. 
Dear Sir : 

Since I wrote you by Mr. Danforth, Mr. R. Temple and family 
have arrived here in thirty-two days from Boston, from whom 
I learn that the story of the dark day is literally true; but, as they 
relate it, the phenomenon was truly wonderful, far beyond my 
comprehension. They say the morning was not as you state, fine 
and clear, but rather lowering and drizzly, though far from dark ; 
that at nine o'clock an uncommon darkness came on, without any 
appearance of a thick cloud. Mr. Temple said it seemed as if a 
veil was drawn over them, which he seemed to look through, and 
see the heaven beyond it. The darkness increased till they were 
obliged to light candles, and this continued till three o'clock, when 
it lightened up a little ; but before sunset the darkness returned, 
and the night resembled the darkness of Egypt, which might be 
felt. It was so intense that many persons in Boston and the coun- 
try were bewildered in going from house to house where they 
were intimately acquainted. They say that during the darkness in 
the day, the green grass appeared of a dark blue color ; and on the 
next morning, both the water and land were covered with a dark 
greasy or oily substance ; that the darkness extended northward, 
as far as Hudson river; and westward, as far as they had heard 
from — I say as far as Lake Champlain ; and that it was the devil 
spreading his wings over the northern rebellious colonies, and if 
they do not repent, the next time he will certainly fly off with them 
all. I give you this account to atone for my infidelity in my last, 
and with all the allowance I can make for the subtle workinsfs of 
the imagination. I confess, I am puzzled to account for the ap- 
pearance ; the young ladies, the Misses Temple, who were in 
Boston, say candles were lighted all the day in the shops and 
houses ; but in the evening, they were at a wedding-ball with a 
brilliant company ; which, if they don't exaggerate, would put me 
in mind of the inhabitants of the old world, who were eating and 
drinking, feasting and frolicking, till the flood came, &c. &c. 
They add another circumstance which increaseth the wonder ; 
namely, that during the darkness there was not the least appear- 



272 JOURNAL AND LITTERS. [1780. 

anceoffog, smoke or haziness. I wish you would consult that 
learned body, the Royal Society, upon this lusus naturce, and let 
me know the result ; for I do not believe all the \vise men of 
Boston will be able to explain it. 

I have seen Boston papers to the 17th of July ; but they con- 
tain nothing new, except the arrival of the Chevalier de Ternay 
at Rhode Island, with seven ships of the line and troops ; upon 
this occasion, all their pens are at work to rekindle the dying 
patriotic fire. Washington, it seems, in expectation of de Ternay's 
arrival, had made a requisition upon all the states, of men, horses, 
provisions, &c. ; but, by the complaints in the papers, the levies 
went on heavily. The plan seems to be to muster their utmost force, 
and in conjunction with the French, to attack New-York, and 
drive the British forces from the continent. I wish they may have 
courage to attempt it. General Kniphausen has burnt the little 
village of Springfield in the Jerseys. A paper of July 6th, says. 
General Clinton was returned to New-York ; but that of the 17th 
leaves him up North river, near forming a junction with General 
Kniphausen. The ladies of Philadelphia have opened a subscription 
for supplying the army with comforts and conveniences ; they have 
appointed a treasuress to receive, and a committee to distribute the 
donations ; and all the ladies upon the continent are earnestly and 
pathetically exhorted to follow this laudable and patriotic example. 
If the zeal and spirit of the peasants can again be raised, I think 
this will prove a decisive campaign. Admirals Graves and Ar- 
buthnot, it is said, are at New-York ; so that if the Chevalier De 
Ternay did not get away with ships very soon, they probably, ere 
this, are added to the British navy ; which would console for the 
loss of the East and West Indiamen. 

I must mention an advertisement I read in one of the papers, 

which shows the value of the paper money there : — " Forty dollars 

is offered a pound for horsehair, or three shillings in hard money." 

Or which is better, "the advertiser will work it up at the halves !" 

Yours very truly, 

Jonathan Sewall. 

Jiugust 26. Visited Mr. Jo. Scott :— dined at Mrs. Hay's, 
with James Harwood and S. Conant, (two young Americans, 



1780.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 273 

strangers to me,) and was after joined by Mr. Thomas Danforth, 
the first time of seeing him since my return, he having been absent 
on a three months' excursion to the westward ; he brought me a 
humorous letter from Judge Sewall. 

August 27. Met S. Walsh and Peter Johonnot. 

TO HON. WILLIAM BROWNE, COWBRIDGE, WALES. 

London, August 29, 1780. 
Dear Sir : 

Mr. Francis Waldo's intended journey to Cowbridge on a visit 
to his sister, Mrs. Flucker, affords me opportunity of acknowledging 
receipt of your favor of the 27th inst. Yours endorsed to Mrs. 
Sargent will go off" to-morrow for Holland under cover of mine j 
having ordered the bearer in case of capture, (though my letters 
contain neither treason, love, nor politics,) to throw them into the 
sea ; yours will follow their fate. My present residence is not that 
of the gay and fashionable, and therefore unknown, suiting me in 
this state of degradation not a whit the less on that score. The 
different views and appearances that are daily arising in and about 
London, are as great and almost as frequent as the different phases 
of the moon in one of its revolutions, and render many spots and 
places a mere terra incognita, that to those who have been absent 
a few years were well known. For having about ten days since 
wandered to the further end of Mary le Bone, being designed to a 
distant quarter, on finding myself there, I inquired for the gardens 
which you remember to have been resorted to by company, and 
where fireworks were exhibited ; to my surprise the whole ground 
is laid out in streets and covered with grand and elegant houses, 
and even beyond it. In this ramble accident revealed a secret that 
has puzzled you and the wise men of Cowbridge, that probably I 
should otherwise never have possessed. Some months since a 
letter was addressed to me by James Russell, dated Manchester- 
square — the location of which was beyond the reach of my know- 
ledge or any of those I had consulted, having never before heard 
of it ; chance, however, in this ramble directing my steps among 
rows of new buildings, and directing also my eye to a corner house 
in an unfinished square of noble structures, inscribed Manchester- 
square, this unimportant secret was thereby revealed. 

35 



274 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1780. 

I am afraid your sunshine of happiness is a little overclouded 
by the mortifying advices in respect of our eastern and western 
fleets y the most capital blow England ever receiveti by an enemy 
at sea since King William's reign, fourscore years ago, when 
nearly four hundred sail were lost at one time. The loss is esti- 
mated at a million, I hope it will not be more. To this another 
stroke has succeeded in the capture of twelve Quebec ships, sup- 
posed next in value to the East-Indiamen outward. I observe that 
Samuel Porter, our townsman, has presented to your view a picture 
in gaudy colors, as you expressed it, of the felicity of his situation ; 
that he is pleased and contented, none has a right to doubt, for he 
affirms it, and he is a very honest fellow and knows his own feel- 
ings ; but our tastes, however, are various as our faces, and he 
doubtless has not made an improper choice for himself, though I 
dare say Judge and Samuel Sewall could tell you It would not be 
a proper one for you or themselves ; and were either to paint it, not 
in high, but modest colors, you would find a difficulty In restrain- 
ing the exercise of the risible muscles. Diogenes was delighted 
to take his abode in a tub, and although one may disapprove his 
taste, who has a right to condemn his choice 1 

Pardon the dress of this letter ; for ever since my arrival in 
town 1 find myself incapable of application ; the present hurry and 
confusion, to which I have for several years been unused, dissipates- 
and overwhelms the small share of spirits left me, and which old 
age is dally lessening. I am often reminded of " Taunton, dear 
Ned," as the song has it : 

" My head is astunncd with the naise and the cries 
Of their cruds and their creams, and their whot piiden pies ; 
And they keep zitcli a naise all over the town, 
Ich think that the world wor a turn'd up-zide-down." 

With the kindest love and regards to' Mrs. Browne and family, 
I remain your affectionate friend, 

S. CURWEN. 

August 31. To Mr. Francis Waldo's, at " Gentlemen's Hotel," 
Pall Mall ; met Mr. Jo. Greene on Hoi born Hdl, and walked to 
Brompton to call on Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Savage | both absent. 



1780.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 275 

At a bookseller's in St. Paul's Churcb-yard, met my Scotcb towns- 
man Andrew Dalglish, from Glasgow, and be wishes me to recom- 
mend him private hnlui'nis. In the Strand met Mr. Frs. Wnldo, 
and accompanied him to Canon cotfee-hnuse, Spring Garden*;, and 
took tea, where w^re joined by Jo Scott, and remained till 
eleven o'clock in talking politics. In the *' Courant" of ihis day, 
find a summary of form of government to be established in Massa- 
chusetts Bay, to commence next October. It will be well if it be 
productive or as much security as the old. There are not wanting 
those, I fancy, many on both sides the great water, who do with 
me fear the dire consequences of an estrangement from govern- 
mental power and or itt-.tion, and a pernicious alliance with a 
faithless people; rn;my there are as well affected to the real 
interest of that country as the most aident republicans. If Fiench 
troops in the English colonies in North America be not pregnant 
with direful evils, and destructive of Ainerican independence, my 
foreboding fears are imaginary may they prove so I wish, how- 
ever, the hot-brained politicians there may in time foresee the 
baneful consequences early enouifh to prevent them, — if not, wo 
betide the inhab tants! I heartily wish they never may experience 
the cruelty and oppression that befell Flanders during the Duke of 
Alva's sanguinary tyranny, and may its oppressions be of less dura- 
tion, should they ever experience them from their present allies. 
The politics of the court of Versailles are not in their nature formed 
to promote the liberty of English subjects; nothing but party rage 
intercepts between the mental eye and a truth visible as the sun at 
meridian in a cloudless day. 

Sept. 2. Circuited to Smithfield, in order to see the ceremony 
of opening Bartholomew Fair by the Lord Mayor — just finished. 
The whole is a mere rabble rout, relishable only by " mene peu- 
ple ; " conducted by men, women, and children, in painted masks 
and merry-andrew tawdry dresses. The amusements consist in 
jumping, dancing, riding on roundabout horses with legs, speech- 
making, etc., performed on scaffalds; together with sleight-of-hand 
tricks, in front rooms hired for that purpose; the ascent whereto 
is by a kind of rough ladder-stairs, actors and performers inviting 
in by a thousand antic postures and gestures. Passages round lined 



276 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1780. 

with booths and tents, crammed with gingerbread, pastry, and all 
kinds and varieties of baubles. 

Sept. 3. To Richmond Gardens ; they fall short of my expec- 
tations — a dead level, laid out in long, straight gravel walks, not in 
the best order — lined with trees and stumps, great numbers, we 
were told, cut down to serve the king's kitchen for fuel. A little 
beyond is a fine lawn, interspersed with trees, and accommodated 
with field seats, commanding a delightful view of the river Thames, 
here a smooth gentle stream, gliding along the side of a delightful 
raised terrace, eight feet high, between gardens or lawns, for a mile 
and a half, reaching to Kew house — for the pompous appellation 
of palace it merits not. This walk reminds me of Sir John Dun- 
ham's beautiful couplet : 

" Though deep yet clear, though gentle yet not dull ; 
Strong without rage, without o'erflowing full." 

From this only pleasing spot departed, taking a final leave of 
these (I know not why) celebrated gardens, and directed our steps 
to the Queen's Terrace, so called, on Richmond Hill, commanding, 
though not a very extensive, yet a distinct and pleasing prospect, 
having many fine objects in command of the eye besides the river, 
which is almost under foot. Ascending to the top, passed the well 
known inn of Star and Garter, remarkable for its elegant accom- 
modations, and consequent high charges, and entered park, cele- 
brated for its natural beauties. 

Sept. 9. Met Mr. J. Waldo, of Bristol, and a Capt. Fletcher, 
both violent Americans in principle ; the latter commander of a 
letter of truce, (falsely so called,) who brought over Mr. R. Tem- 
ple and family. 

Sept. 12. At Guildhall, to see the polhng for city members 
for new parliament; conducted with regularity, the avenues crowded 
with distributers of party papers, bawling aloud for their employ- 
ers' favorites, friends of the respective candidates bringing on voters, 
single and in shoals. 

Sept. 15. Charles J. Fox shot ahead of Lord Lincoln greatly 
yesterday (candidates for Westminster) ; the latter, it is said, pro- 
poses to keep the election going on till after some borough elec- 



1780.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 277 

lions are over, in order to have a numerous host of friends, but he 
must rally great numbers. 

Sept. 16. To Mr. Timmins's, and after an hour's abode, walk- 
ed together ; encountered Van Coulster ; his shabby dress gave me 
uneasiness, indicating want; he seemed in good spirits, however, 
and inquired my lodgings — gave him a card. 

Sept. 17. Attended worship at Lincoln's Inn chapel. Samuel 
Peters preached — he is an indifferent speaker and composer — how 
he got there is as hard to conceive as straws in amber. After, at 
Essex chapel, Mr. Lindsay preached to a very respectable looking 
assembly; church is not crowded at this season — a most excellent 
discourse, delivered with suitable gravity, and, I am disposed to 
believe, sincerity. 

Seft. 19. Market crowded with mob huzzaing for Fox. 

Sept. 21. Election for sheriffs; all but livery excluded from 
the hall on election of city officers. 

Sept. 23. Walking through Old Bailey, and seeing a great 
crowd, learnt that two pickpockets were to be whipped. Jack 
Ketch, a short sturdy man, soon appeared with the culprits, one 
after the other ; the first seemed like an old offender, and was mod- 
erately lashed ; the mob said he had bought off the minister of 
justice ; he writhed but little. The other was young, distress 
painted strongly on his countenance ; he cried loudly ; his back 
seemed unused to stripes; from this time it will carry the marks 
of legal vengeance, and proofs of his folly and wickedness. Going 
forward, passed through the Strand ; and returned by way of 
Covent Garden to see election, which had been ended and poll 
closed for two hours ; and the elected members, returning from the 
procession, were just entering James'-street, mounted on two arm 
chairs, placed on a board that was carried on eight men's shoul- 
ders, accompanied by thousands with tokens of victory : red and 
blue ribbons in their hats. 

Sept. 25. At Covent Garden theatre ; performance, Beggar's 
Opera; parts well played, but great impropriety, not to say inde- 
cency, in Mrs. Kennedy's personating McHeath. Bravery, gal- 
lantry, and a fearless disregard of death, the characteristics of that 
notorious highwayman ; which female softness awkwardly imitates. 
Following entertainment, falsely so called ; execrably foolish and 



278 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1780. 

childish. I am sorry to arraign even the shilling gallery for want 
of judgment, in suffering such unmeaning stuff lo jiass for a farce. 

TO WILLIAM CABOT, ESQ, NO. 7, LAMBETH-TERRACE. 

JVo. 22, Castle-stnet, Falcon -square, Sept. 28, 1780. 
Dear S r : 

Pvecollecting a request you made of me some months since by 
letter, I now acquaint you that l)y reason of ahsc^nce of mind at 
that time, it was not in my memory that Mr. Lindsay, the minister 
of the Unitarian society meeting at Essex Hou-e m the vStiand, 
had published a liturjiy reformed agreeably to Dr. Saiiuiel Chiike's 
plan, free from the errors and pei-uliarities ol any and every [lar- 
ticular sect amo-ig Christ ans ; making ilie supieme God and Father 
of all, in contradistinction to every other being, /he scU obj.ct of 
religious worship) ; but in the name and as the disciples of Jesus 
Christ, whose Loid, head and master, all true Christians acknow- 
ledge him to be. If you have not bought one, they are to be had 
of Mr. Johnson, bookseller, 72 St. Paul's Church-yard. His mode 
of worship, I profess to think agreeable to the genuine spirit of the 
gospel, and myself to be one of his worshippmg congregation. 
His plan, in ray view, is scriptural ; his worship plain, simple, un- 
mixed with superstitious, unmeaning ceremonies, as all establish- 
ments are more or less burdened with. His preaching is instructive; 
his delivery serious, pathetic, and intelligible; his language ener- 
getic and clear; the assembly, the most respectable for its numbers 
I ever saw. Yours truly, 

S. CtJRWEN. 

Sept. 29. As I w^as walking in Holborn, observed a throng of 
ordinary people crowding round a chaise filled with young children 
of about seven years of age ; inquiring the reason, was informed 
they were young sinners who were accustomed to go about in the 
evening, purloining whatever they could lay their hands on, and 
were going to be consigned into the hands of justice. Great pity 
that so many children, capable of being trained to useful employ- 
ments and become blessings to society, should be thus early 
initiated, by the wicked unthinkirig parents of the lower classes in 
this huge overgrown metropolis, in those pernicious practices of 



1780.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 279 

every species of vice the human heart can be tainted with, which 
renders them common pesls, and most commonly brings them to 
the h liter. 

Oct. 6. At Treasury, Mr. Rowe out of town ; no orders till the 
20th— the delay a hardship ; every expedient is used that craft can 
devise and power execute to squeeze dependents. — Evening at 
Saddler's Wells ; a variety of exhibitions, tumbling in great variety ; 
among others was the following : a lad about six years old, stand- 
ing on a man's hands, with arms outstretched, in an erect posture, 
turned his body backwards so as to bring his face in a line with 
his legs, and between them. After continuing in this seemingly 
strained condition for a half minute, he gradually returned back to 
his natural shape, keeping his poise without any aid. In rope- 
dancing were the two following instances : a young person, habit- 
ed and in appearance a female to the waist, and like a boy down- 
wards, on the curtain being drawn up, was first seen lying on her 
back, and swinging to and fro three feet above the floor of the 
stage; rising without any assistance, she walked backwards and 
forwards on it ; whilst in motion, a whalebone hoop oi greater 
diameter than her height was placed on the wire, into which she 
stepped and walked backwards and forwards as before, and whilst 
in it received in her hand a smaller hoop, whereon were placed two 
tumblers, about two thirds full of red liquor, and whilst she was 
swinging whirled the smaller hoop round many times without 
spilling a drop. The same afterwards mounted a tight-rope, hav- 
ing baskets of the size of a half bushel fastened to her feet ; with 
these she walked backwards and forwards, displaying various mo- 
tions. After divesting herself of these incumbrances, she first 
walked as before backwards and forwards, leaping, vaulting, and 
throwing herself down. Her performances on the tight-rope were 
accompanied by a balance-pole in her hand, and by two men who 
slightly touched the pole when it descended below the horizontal 
lines. Whilst on the slack-rope, she went through the whole ex- 
ercise of flourishing colors, consisting of a great variety of motions 
— holding a standard in each hand. 



280 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1780;- 

TO ARTHUR SAVAGE, ESQ., NO. 7, BROMPTON-ROW. 

JVo. 22, Castle-street, Falcon-square, Oct. 14, 1780. 
Dear Sir : 

Your agreeable antl obliging favor of the 11th instant came to 
hand the day after its date, but a severe cold, yet confining me, 
prevented the attention your politeness demanded. 

I thank you for the kind information it contained respecting the 
Roman denarii and English coins; a few of which, if not above 
the reach of my purse, I would gladly procure. 

If my indisposition goes off and the weather permits, I will wait 
on you next Monday afternoon. With compliments to Mrs. and 
Miss Savage, I remain, etc., etc. 

S. CURWEN. 

Oct. 15. Sunday afternoon, at the Temple. Stood for a time 
to take another stare at old Plowden's funeral monument; the" 
figure in a decumbent posture, near the altar — a most expressive 
face ; he died in 1585. This church is a noble old large structure, 
containing many funeral monuments and inscriptions. Just without 
the church, and under arches, lie in a decumbent posture ten Tem- 
plars, in their military garb and appurtenances, contained within 
two separate inclosures. From church retreated with the company 
into the gardens, always open on Sundays between and after 
services. 

Oct. 16. Visited Mr. A. Savage, and abode there till late in 
the evening. 

Oct. 17. To Oxford-street, to examine some silver Roman 
denarii and Greek and English coins — for which they require far 
more than I think them worth — a Cromwell half-crown at thirty- 
six shillings ! But I am not medal mad. 

Oct. 18. Received an order from the treasury for my quarterly 
allowance. Bought ten silver Roman denarii. Mr. Samuel Hirst 
Sparhawk and Andrew Dalglish drank tea with me. 

Oct. 19. Went with Mr. Sparhawk to Disputing Club, at King's 
Arms, Cornhill — Question : " Is it for the advantage of mankind, 
that at the institution of government, rewards should have been given 
to virtue, as well as punishments inflicted for vice ?" The proposer 



1780.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 281 

varied the question, or rather dispute, by repeatedly declaring the 
impossibility of establishing it, from the unsuccessful attempts of 
ancient nations, as Egyptians, Chinese, former and modern. This 
point was however contested, as in the instance of the Romans, who 
made some faint attempts in corona civica and muralis — allowino- 
valor to be a virtue, and by exempting from taxes the father of four 
children, placing the increase in society in that predicament; and 
in modern times the French, in bestowing the order of St. Louis, 
and even the English in some instances, particularly the order of 
the Bath — the late honor and pension to Capt. Farmer's eldest son 
and widow; all of which had and have a tendency to raise an emu- 
lation in the breasts of gentlemen in that line. The whole of which 
and many other fine things on this side the question, were smartly 
and pointedly ridiculed by a Dr. Dodd, whose brilliancy of expres- 
sion, liveliness of wit, and keenness of satire, kept the assembly in 
almost one continued roar of laughter and applause. Some of the 
speakers acquitted themselves to very general approbation, and 
none failed to receive marks of applause. However low put He 
virtue and public spirit is thought to be, and unfortunately really 
is, I could not but remark, with great satisfaction and delight of 
soul, the loud and very general shouts of applause to every lively, 
just sentiment and expression in favor or in support of the virtues, 
public spirit, regard to the constitution, and the rights of mankind. 

The room was large and handsomely furnished with glass 
chandeliers ; and the entertainment so highly pleasing, amusing, 
and instructive, that I am determined to attend hereafter every 
Thursday evening, when circumstances shall permit. The presi- 
dent enters at eight o'clock, and continues till ten. When the 
question has been debated, and no one, after a silence of two 
minutes, offers to rise, he puts the question, or rather reads it very 
deliberately ; the vote is then taken and declared ; in the present 
question, in the negative. 

Oct. 25. It being Accession-day, park guns fired — saw a great 
collection of people. 

Oct. 26. Walked with Mr. Dalglish to Hempsted, passing 
Caen Wood, Lord Mansfield's seat ; from thence to Highgate ; at 
Gate-house we dined — from thence to Bagnigge-wells to tea — 
passing home, we abode there two hours, and departed to King's 

36 



282 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1780. 

Arms, Cornhill Disputing Club ; — question proposed was, " Would 
it be proper at this crisis, considering our successes in South Caro~ 
Una, to offer the Americans independence?^^ After much warmth 
oi' expression on both sides, though without scurrihty or abuse, the 
question was put ; though the first time declared by the president 
uncertain on which side the majority lay, to me it appeared in the 
affirmative; none denied the president's declaration. The second 
time it was plainly in the negative. 

Oct. 28. Had an agreeable tete-a-tete with Mr. T. Danforth, 
on his Holland tour. Dined at Mr. Sparhawk's; company J. Scott, 
B. Cutler, and a young Mr. Perkins, late from New- York. Heard 
many novel stories about America and the Americans. 

TO REV. JOSEPH BRETLAND, EXETER. 

London, Oct. 31, 1780. 
Dear Sir : 

I should not have failed to have answered your obliging favor 
of the 30th ult. before this time, but the daily expectation of giv- 
ing a satisfactory reply to your inquiry, (concerning the state of 
the air previous to the darkness on which your conjecture was 
founded,) has been the only cause of this delay. The young per- 
son who brought the relation first to London from Boston, being 
gone to Holland, has not yet returned ; nor has it been in my 
power to obtain sight of any one from that country since ; despair- 
ing of it for some length of time, I cannot prevail on myself to de- 
lay any longer. 

Your ingenious accounting for the appearances during and after 
the darkness is natural, pleasing and intelligible. The trouble you 
have taken to commit your thoughts on the subject to writing, de- 
mands my thanks. The late performance of Dr. Priestley , which you 
wished me to read, I have bought and read with great delight; for 
when the very existence of the Deity, as well as his moral govern- 
ment, is denied and made the scorn and subject of light mirth 
among the young, thoughtless and profligate, in conversation as 
well as in the writings of philosophers and pretenders to cool, dis- 
passionate, unprejudiced reasoning, I am pleased to find one of Df. 
Priestley's known abilities stand up in support of this most impor- 
tant of all the articles of belief. Two or three difficulties having 



1780.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 283 

occurred to me in reading, (which was done in a kind of currente 
pede,) I shall give it a second or third examination, and hope by 
the friendly aid of my worthy friend, to arrive at a more compre- 
hensive knowledge of the subject. I am glad Mr. H.'s arrogance 
and malevolence, if you will allow the expression, against moral 
obligation, is corrected by so masterly a hand ; but could wish the 
doctor had not rated his philosophical abilities so low; for should 
his defenders find the least mistake, misrepresentation or misquota- 
tion, his warmth will be construed to have proceeded from envy 
and a bitterness of spirit against an author of established fame; nor 
will the friends to that side of the question fail to magnify it and 
trumpet it forth to the doctor's disadvantage. 

I am sorry I cannot give an answer of a contrary kind to my 
friend's wish, so flattering to my pride, of my return to Exeter; but 
the increasing infirmities of old age, the advanced season of the 
year, and, above all, the approaching period to the American dis- 
pute, forbid my leaving the city. I fancy you will wonder at the 
last reason assigned, but in truth that event, it is my real opinion, 
is much nearer than is generally expected. I acknowledge I am 
not acquainted with one courtier or court lounger, nor informed of 
the deliberations or opinions prevailing in the cabinet. It is from 
the appearances of affairs only 1 form my judgment. In a 
chequered state of things, as is the case in common wars, the sen- 
timents, opinions and judgments of all men vary with the vicissi- 
tudinary, changing state of events ; but in this baneful, woful 
quarrel, such a continued, unbroken series of disappointments, dis- 
asters and mortifying events have taken place, that it seems to me 
to be morally impossible but the eyes of all thoughtful, prudent, 
knowing men must open and discern the impolicy and impractica- 
bility of accomplishing the great end for which this war was un- 
dertaken — the reduction of the colonies to the obedience of the 
British parliament. It may be objected that our prospects are 
brightened, and we are in a course of conquering; — that I deny, 
for one swallow makes no summer. We have beaten the rebel 
army, and expelled that army out of Carolina with half their num- 
bers ; have rivetted the inhabitants to our interests ; they are be- 
come loyalists and have sworn allegiance, and that they will always 



284 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1780. 

do whilst you can command their estates and persons. This re- 
minds me of the hnes in Hudibras : 

" 'Tis he that breaks an oath who makes it ; 
Not he who for convenience takes it." 

That the Americans practise this rule is true, but how far they 
believe it to be just, I won't say. For proof I refer you to Rhode 
Island, Philadelphia, and those parts of Long Island and the Jer- 
seys, relinquished; there are besides many other instances ; while un- 
der British power they are loyal, that power removed, they as nat- 
urally return to their former condition as any elastic body returns 
to its natural form when the force is removed. That the reduction 
of South Carolina with the defeat of Gates will draw North Caro- 
lina and Virginia, I no more believe, than that Rodney will over- 
power either of the fleets of the combined powers, and of course 
take possession of some of their islands in the West Indies, which 
nobody dreams of. 

The situation of this country respecting neutral powers, is 
alarming ; should Portugal declare against us, we shall not have a 
port on the sea coast of this terrestrial globe to carry our prisoners 
into out of our own dominions, whilst all the nations far and near 
shelter and protect our enemies ; and that she is on the point of 
forsaking our alliance is but too probable. If Great Britain shall 
retain her rank among the great nations of Europe, and a respect- 
able part of her foreign possessions, the miracle of her salvation 
will be as great and auspicious as the deliverance of the children 
of Israel from the oppressive power of Pharaoh and his hosts when 
they stood trembling on the banks of the Red Sea, just before it 
opened by divine command to let them pass through, and thereby 
escape his power. Could my prayers and tears prevail, a plenty- 
should not be wanting to save our country from utter ruin, to which 
I fear this once happy, favored isle is hastening by large strides. 

Please make my compliments to such acquaintances as you 
know I did and ought to esteem, and believe me very truly, 

Your friend, 

S. Cur WEN, 



1780.] JOUKNAL AND LETTERS. 285 



CHAPTER XIV. 

London, JYov. 1, 1780. Went to Parliament House, through 
Court of Requests to lobby of House of Commons ; thence to pas- 
sage to the House of Lords ; the crowd in both great. I could gain 
no admittance. I saw Lord George Germaine for the first time ; a 
large, stout, raw-boned man. Met Mr. R. Temple and family in 
the passage to the lords, waiting to see Mr. Querme of the black 
rod ; questioned him about the state of the air in New England 
previous to the mid-day darkness in May last year ; he remembered 
but little about that event, or declined to say much about it. In 
clearing the house to go to the lords to attend the king's accept- 
ance of their speaker, and hear his speech from the throne, I was 
drawn away, when otherwise I might have seen Lord North, that 
for the space of five years, my residence in England, I have not 
hitherto been favored with. 

JYov. 4. Accompanied Mr. Dalglish to La Belle Assemblee, 
or Ladies' Disputing Society. The question proposed was : " Would 
it not be prudent and proper, considering the great demand for 
public supplies, and the difficulty of raising them, to lay a tax on 
old bachelors ?" The lady who first spoke, moved to alter the 
question and include old maids, which was objected to by a fine 
young lady, who answered in a lively, pleasing manner ; her objec- 
tion was, however, overruled by a vote put by the president. Ques- 
tion then stood as including old maids. Twelve female speakers 
stood forth in succession, and the question was carried in the affir- 
mative. There were many excellent thoughts expressed and some 
witty ones; some acquitted themselves to the approbation of the 
company. A few, through diffidence or forgetfulness, stopped short 
in mid-race, and sat down, unable to proceed ; these met with po- 
lite and kind indulgence, and wereclapped by way of encourage- 
ment. 

JYov. 8. Towards Guildhall meeting; great crowds to view 
the preparations for to-morrow, when the mayor is to be sworn in 



286 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1780. 

and invested with the regalia of the chief magistracy. The floor 
of the hall is raised, half of the lower part partitioned off and in- 
closed for the entertainment of the lord mayor, aldermen, and com- 
mon council, with their guests. In the central line, through the 
whole length, are hung three noble chandeliers, and round the 
walls, in festoons, are placed small lamps of different colors. The 
lady mayoress' drawing room is also adorned in the same manner, 
and a music gallery built up for the present occasion. 

JYov.9. Lord Mayor's day. My lord goes attended in a pompous 
procession from Guildhall toQueenhithe stairs, and thence in the city 
barge, gaudily decorated, by water to Whitehall stairs, from whence 
he rides in a coach to Westminster Hall, to be sworn into his new 
office by one of the barons of the exchequer. He returns by water 
to Blackfriars Bridge stairs, where he lands and goes in city stage 
coach to Guildhall, to partake of the banquet there provided, and 
pass the remainder of the day in festivity, accompanied by city 
councils, sheriffs, and other officers. Streets lined with crowds, 
besides company stands or tents erected in Cheapside, on both sides 
as far as King-street, leading to Guildhall. A man in complete 
armor attends the armorer's company on horseback, with such a 
•weight of iron as renders his duty a heavy and fatiguing one. 
Called on by Samuel Sparhawk, to accompany me to a friend's 
house on Ludgate hill, for an advantageous sight of the procession, 
but being too early, continued our walk to the park, where we met 
Mr. Clark (father-in-law of Mr. Copley) for the first time since my 
return to London ; he kindly welcomed me back, and invited me 
to renew my visits at his house. 

TO HON. JONATHAN SEWALL, BRISTOL. 

London, JYov. 19, 1780. 
Dear Sir : 

The delay to answer your favor of August 24, arose solely from 
succes^ve diappointments in my endeavors to obtain a true and in- 
telligible relation of the state of the air immediately preceding the 
darkness that covered the face of the heavens on the 19th of last 
May ; the knowledge of this circumstance seems necessary in order 
to assign a strictly philosophical reason for it. As the fact at pre- 
sent stands, all reasoning about it depends on the truth of hy- 



1780.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 287 

potheses ; my philosophical friend, Mr. Bretland, of Exeter, has 
sent the following conjectural account of its cause, which I shall 
transcribe for your amusement, and doubt not you will think it both 
ingenious and probable. 

" The uncommon phenomenon of which you have favored me 
with an account, is deserving the attention of philosophers : the 
previous circumstances of the atmosphere where it happened, seem 
necessary to enable me to give a satisfactory explication of its 
causes. If I may be allowed to conjecture, I suppose that before 
it came on, there had been much dry and warm weather, and an 
extensive stagnation in the air. If these were the previous circum- 
stances, it may, I think, be accounted for by supposing that the 
air having been very much dried, and the putrefaction of lakes and 
vegetable substances having become very great and extensive, 
there was a copious ascent of vapors, which are well known to 
have frequently a blue or purple tinge, and at the same time not 
to form themselves into clouds sufficiently dense to obstruct the pas- 
sage of the rays of light, or wholly interrupt the view of objects 
between which and the observer's eye they may chance to be situ- 
ated, though dense enough to reflect a very large proportion of the 
rays of light from the upper surface, and sufficiently colored to 
tinge the rays that pass through them, and so communicate their 
own color to the objects on which these rays fell. Perhaps you 
may more clearly apprehend my meaning by an example. Take 
a spectacle-glass, of deep purple color, and look through it at an ob- 
ject, and you will find that you can see the object distinctly ; and 
let the light shine through it upon an object, and you will observe 
the object but faintly illuminated, and to receive in some degree the 
color of the glass. Now the greasy substance that fell in the night, 
seems to have formed during part of the day a vast spectacle-glass, 
as I may call it, through which the heavens were visible, and from 
the rays passing through which, the glass received a blue or pur- 
ple tinge. The light that came through that immensely large glass 
was so little that a great darkness was occasioned by the want of 
those inconceivably more numerous rays that were reflected by the 
upper surface of the great spectacle-glass, and had no object inter- 
posed, would have fallen as usual on the earth's surface. If the 
boundaries of the vast spectacle-glass had been discoverable, the 



288 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1780.- 

people of Boston would have perceived that there was a vast cloud 
hanging over them ; but as they looked through a medium, the 
limits of which they could not perceive, they were not able to dis- 
cover any cloud, but as Mr. Temple justly remarked, the heavens 
seemed to be covered only with a large transparent veil." 

So far my friend. — I could wish it were possible to procure a just 
account of this necessary circumstance in order to ascertain the true 
cause of so singular a phenomenon, but this I fear is not obtainable. 
How great was my disappointment at meeting your informant a 
few days since in the lobby of the House of Lords, where I had some 
conversation with him on the subject, but to no purpose, he I fancy 
not having examined it with a philosopher's attention, or even 
puzzled his head to investigate natural causes. 

Much greater effects might have been expected from the almost 
miraculous success of Lord Cornwallis, than we have now reason 
to expect; but knowing my views of things are very different from 
yours, I will not trouble you with my foreboding fears, and shall 
bid adieu to the subject, which I never consider without reluctance. 

Yours, truly, 

S. CURWEN. 

Jfov. 11. Entered Chancery court, the chancellor sitting as he, 
or the master of the rolls when he presides, always does, with hat 
on, taking minutes of the case, as is customary in all the courts 
for judges to do. 

J^ov. 12. Attended worship at Essex House chapel ; Mr. 
Lindsay preached. In mid-service, a well dressed Scotch lady 
entered the pew wherein a gentleman and myself were sitting. 
After service, she inquired of me if the preacher did not deny the 
divinity of Christ, or rather, she affirmed that he did ; adding, she 
never heard it so plainly declared in public before ; to which I 
assented, telling her this congregation was set up professedly on 
Unitarian principles ; disavowing all other objects of religious 
worship and adoration, but the supreme, everlasting God, the 
Father and Lord of the universe, the God and Father of our Lord 
Jesus Christ ; who, in the text, is declared to be the Son of the 
everlasting God. The settled members hold themselves the disci- 
ples of Christ, and members of that body of which he is head She 



1780.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 289 

further added, that Mr. L. was a Socinian ; which I neither was 
disposed nor could I deny, referring her to himself for a justifica- 
tion of his principles, as far as he could make it satisfactory to her, 
if her curiosity or wishes led her to make further inquiries ; giving 
her a short relation of his conduct with respect to his forsaking the 
Church of England, whereof he was a settled minister seven years 
ago ; but his scruples in relation to the divinity of Christ had 
forced him to relinquish a valuable living, and lucrative, honorable 
prospects in that establishment, for an uncertain support among 
those of his own more liberal sentiments ; and his integrity had 
been rewarded here by this society. She seemed disposed to 
lengthen our conversation, but having said all I had proposed to 
impart at present, took a sudden leave. 

After tea, called on Mr. Dalglish ; whom, with his friend, I 
accompanied in a coach to " Carlisle House," at a Sunday evening 
entertainment, called the promenade, instituted in lieu of public 
amusement ; and to compensate for twelve tedious hours interval 
laid under an interdict by the laws of the country, yet unrepealed 
formally by the legislature, though effectually so in the houses of 
the great and wealthy, from whence religion and charity are but 
too generally banished. The employment of the company is 
simply walking through the rooms ; being allowed tea, coffee, cho- 
colate, lemonade, orgeat, negus, milk, &c. ; admission by ticket, 
cost, three shillings ; dress, decent, full not required ; some in 
boots ; one carelessly in spurs happening to catch a lady's flounce, 
he was obliged to apologize and take them off. The ladies were 
rigged out in gaudy attire, attended by bucks, bloods, and macca- 
ronies, though it is also resorted to by persons of irreproachable 
character : among the wheat will be tares. The arrangement of 
the house is as follows : — From the vestibule where the tickets are 
received, the entrance is through a short passage into the first room, 
of a moderate size, covered with carpets, and furnished with wooden 
chairs and seats in Chinese taste ; through this the company 
passes to another of a larger size, furnished and accommodated as 
the former ; passing this, you enter the long-room, about eighty 
feet by forty ; this is the largest, and lighted with glass chandeliers 
and branches fixed to side walls, against which stand sofas covered 
with silk, — floors carpeted. Hence tending to the left, you cross 

37 



290 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1780. 

the hall, and enter the wilderness or grotto, having natural 
evergreens planted round the walls ; the centre an oblong square, 
about twenty-five feet long and fifteen broad, fenced with an open 
railing, a few shrubs interspersed, flowering moss and grass ; in 
one of the angles is a natural well, with a living spring, which 
the attendant told me was mineral. Fronting the entrance, in the 
centre, at the further end is a cave cased with petrifactions, stones 
artificially cut into resemblance of the former, and spars, with here 
and there a dim lamp so placed as to afford but an imperfect sight 
of surrounding objects. To the top of the arch leading to the cave, 
is an ascent of two flights of steps on each hand, and over it a 
room not unlike in form the cave below, painted in modern style 
in oval compartments, containing hieroglyphics and ancient sto- 
ries ; on the same elevation is a narrow gallery, continued on 
either side to about half the length of room, fronted near three feet 
high with an open Chinese fence or railing : — this room is about 
fifty feet deep by thirty wide, lighted as the others with variegated 
lamps, but rather dim ; next enter into two tea rooms, each wath 
tables for forty sets or parties. 

So far for my imperfect description of this house, wherein the 
well known Mrs. Cornelly used to accommodate the nobility, etc. 
wnth masquerades and coteries. Dress of the ladies differed widely ; 
one part swept their track by long trails, the other by an enormous 
size of hoops and petticoats. The company usually resorting there 
about seven hundred, as the ticket receiver told me ; — this evening 
the house was thronged with a good thousand. The rooms were 
filled, so that we could scarce pass without jostling, interfering and 
elbowing ; for my own part, being old, small and infirm, I received 
more than a score of full butt rencounters with females ; — whether 
provision was not made for so large a company, or whatever the 
cause may be, it was full two hours before I could procure a dish 
of tea, after fifteen vain attempts, nor was I singular ; and when 
served, it was in a slovenly manner on a dirty tea-stand. I never 
saw a place of public resort where the company was treated with 
so little respect by servants ; even common tea-houses, whose charac- 
ter is far humbler, as " Bagnigge Wells," " White Conduit House," 
" Dog and Duck," etc., are in this respect preferable. It would 
be treating " Ranelagh" with great indignity to bring it into com- 



1780.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 291 

parison with this which is designed to supply its place during the 
long vacation of that fashionable resort ; nor are Vauxhali Gardens 
less than a thousand times beyond this in every eligible circum- 
stance, unless I saw it under peculiar disadvantages. 

Met Peter Frye and young William Eppes there ; also saw the 
Duke of Queensbury, who I was told is a never failing attendant 
on places of dissipation, which his seeming age should, one might 
think, restrain him from such juvenile amusements ; but old habits 
are strong, and too powerful to be resisted when long indulged. 
Tired of this scene I took myself off at the early hour of twelve, 
and bidding adieu to Carlisle House, after a few egaremens arrived 
with no small content at my own lodgings, 

JYov. 14. While rambling, Montague House came in view ; it 
occurred to me to take another view of the Museum ; I entered and 
applied to Dr. Harper, the under-librarian, who referred me to the 
ticket porter for admission the following day at eleven o'clock. 
Arriving at home, Wm. Cabot drank tea with me ; S. Sparhawk 
came in afterwards, and abode two hours ; from whom I heard the 
first account of Arnold's intentional withdrawing himself and four 
or five thousand troops under his command from congressional 
service to the royal standard at New-York; the failure of this 
scheme of treachery, and his lucky escape from his enemies' hands. 
From him also the relation of the seizure of Mr. Laurens' papers, 
late president of the Congress, and now a state prisoner in the 
tower ; giving an account of the desperate situation of their affairs, 
with complaints of failure of their resources, and their inability to 
support the war any longer without loans from Holland, France or 
Spain. The above comes from Benjamin Thompson,* a native of 
Massachusetts, (formerly an apprentice to my next door neighbor in 
Salem, Mr, John Appleton, an importer of British goods,) now 
under-secretary in the American department, 

JYov. 15. Mr. Snelson calling at my lodgings by accident, I 
told him of my intention of visiting the British Museum, and took 
him with me. Dr. GifTord, the librarian, indulged me with the ad- 
mittance of my companions without a ticket. The company nu- 
merous, of both sexes ; several inquisitive and chatty ladies not a 
little heightening the entertainment. In the Harleian collection 

* Afterwards Count Rumford. 



292 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [17^0. 

was an ancient manuscript, near twelve hundred years old, most 
curiously illuminated ; a copy of Genesis in Greek capitals, 
written by Origen's own hand in a quarto size, inclosed in a beau- 
tiful tin-gilt box resembling that fold, containing only its remains, 
being unfortunately almost wholly destroyed in the Cotton library 
conflagration many years ago. On the same shelves were also 
many others of distant antiquity in the same wretched plight with 
this. Here also is the remains of the original Magna Charta, 
granted by King John at Runnymead, part of which is scorched 
and illegible by the same catastrophe. An exact but not per- 
fectly fac simile copy stands by its parent's side, with the arms of 
those noble barons who extorted it from that unworthy prince, em- 
blazoned and surrounding it. Also that most valuable manuscript, 
the Alexandrian copy of ^the Bible, in Greek capitals, of fourteen 
hundred years' duration. 

Among the shell-fish kind is one of the smallest size, which 
looks like the vertebrae of a small animal, for which an Italian 
curioso paid three thousand sequins. Sir Hans Sloane at length 
became possessed of it for thirty pounds sterling ! Among pearls 
is one of the size of a pea, of a light purplish water, valued at five 
hundred pounds. So liberal of money are men of curiosity, that 
the last mentioned sum has been offered for it. The innumerable 
curiosities in the natural as well as artificial way, coming fast upon 
me, confounded my memory ; the latter destroying the traces of the 
former by the quickness of their transition. Dr. GifFord's respect- 
ful and cheerful attention is very pleasing ; he is eighty-one years 
old, lively and sprightly to an uncommon degree. I observed 
against the wall of the Cotton library a bust of Pope Benedict XIV., 
called from the liberality of his sentiments " the Protestant pope." 
In the room of antiquities received from Sir William Hamilton, 
and brought from Italy, is a vase having an inscription of Etruscan 
original, in the ancient mode of writing in Greece, soon after the 
importation of the sixteen letters from Phenicia by Cadmus. 

Jfov. 16. State lottery being to be drawn, curiosity led me to 
Guildhall, where a gallery for spectators is erected with seats, one 
of which I obtained for sixpence. The first object that struck me 
was a great number of clerks writing down the numbers of tickets 
and quality as they were proclaimed. The wheels were placed 



1780.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 293 

on either hand upon a stage raised about six feet from the floor, at 
the bottom of the hall under Beckford's statue; between were 
seated the commissioners at a long table, and a boy at each wheel. 
After delivering the ticket the boy raises his hand above his head 
with fingers displayed open, and after two flourishes thrusts it into 
the wheel, delivering the tickets severally to the man on either 
side, who on cutting the tickets open, being tied and sealed, de- 
clares the number. To prevent future pranks from boys employed 
to draw out the numbers, a commissioner sits in a box directly 
opposite each boy and near him ; who besides is obliged on taking 
out each number to raise up his hand, holding the ticket between 
his fore finger and thumb, delivering it to the man, who after 
cutting it open announces its fate or fortune. 

Walked to New England Coifee-house to inquire after new 
lodgings ; from thence to the Disputing Club at King's Arms 
Tavern, Cornhill ; the question to be spoken, for properly it was 
not debated, was, " Can the doctrine of polygamy, endeavored to he 
established by a well known divine in a late publication, be defended 
on the 'principles of reason, religion, or sound policy ?" After many 
humorous and some solid arguments against it, in defence however 
of which no one stood up on Dr. Maddam the author's grounds, 
it was voted in the negative, one hand only in affirmative, produ- 
cing a hiss or laugh of contempt and indignation. A gentleman 
whom I took to be in the law line, stood up and modestly said the 
argument had not had a fair discussion, as no one appeared but to 
condemn and reprobate ; and after an apology, presumed to sup- 
pose it might under certain regulations and restrictions by the 
legislature, in certain supposable cases, be allowed, whereby some 
evils, the too common attendants of matrimony, might be avoided 
without incurring greater evils. This met with not the least coun- 
tenance, yet the speaker, who was a well behaved man of know- 
ledge and ability, was treated with respect. It was moved that the 
company should publicly reprobate the doctrine, but prudential 
considerations prevailed to negative the motion. 

J^ov. 21. Left cards and compliments at Mr. Clarke's for 
himself and Mr. and Mrs. Copley, who are abroad. 

J{ov. 22. Mrs. Cowley, a celebrated playwright, dined with 
us ; she is a small, sprightly body. Evening at a new play called 
" Generous Impostor." 



294 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1780. 

Jfov. 23. Went to Crown Coffee-house to meet Mr. Arthur 
Savage, disappointed ; — proceeded to Westminster Hall — courts 
sitting. Saw Lord Loughborough for the first time since his title 
and presidency of the common pleas j he was single on the bench, 
being on trials after term. Saw Judge Buller on king's bench ; he 
appears shrewd, quick, ready, and promises for an active judge — 
this being my first sight of him since his advancement. 

J^ov. 24. Taking out Mr. Dalglish, proceeded to Adelphi 
Hotel to visit, en passant, Col. Peter Frye and his daughter, Mrs. 
Oliver ;* after a short stay departed for W^estminster Hall, the 
doors of neither Lords nor Commons being open ; returning passed 
through the Park, and met Samuel Sparhawk, who joined us to 
Spring Garden Coffee-house. 

J^ov. 28. At Westminster Hall ; courts sitting. Mr. Justice 
Skinner, lately advanced to chief baronship on exchequer bench. 
Saw Mr. Justice Heath on common pleas bench, whom I knew and 
frequently saw a sergeant at Exeter, his birth place. 

JVou. 29. Six provinces out of seven of the Dutch union have 
acceded to the armed neutrality of the north, to prevent British 
search of neutral ships suspected of carrying naval and military 
stores to the enemy. 

Sunday, December 3. Walked up the Strand, when to my 
surprise I found myself all alone, not a person within sight, not a 
coach to be seen or heard ; which, considering the hour, (five 
P. M.) was singular. In this predicament I walked on a hundred 
yards or more; arrived at Spring Garden Coffee-house, and over a 
dish of tea read the Morning Post, containing letters of Generals 
Washington, CUnton, Arnold, and Major Andre. The latter, 
though pitied here, perhaps justly, is doubtless to be ranked in the 
class of spies, and his punishment, however censured here, was in 
my mind not undeservedly inflicted, and to be justified by the 
universal practice of all nations, civilized and uncivilized, on per- 
sons of that character. 

Dec. 4. At New England Coffee-house, where conversed for 
the first time with William Jackson, from whom learnt particular 
circumstances of harsh treatment he received from fierce partisans 
in Boston, Newburyport, etc. 

Dec. 5. Evening at Patagonian Theatre, Exeter 'Change ; a 

* Afterwards the wife of Sir John Knight. 



1780.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 295 

bauble of a thing. The show a burlesque farce, but I know not of 
what ; performance in puppetry, speakers below the stage and in- 
visible ; machinery awkward, scenery pretty. Among the auditors 
was Lord Molesworth. 

Dec. 12. Samuel H. Sparhawk called ; accompanied him to 
Ladies' Disputing Club, at King's Arms, Cornhill. A lady pre- 
sided and acquitted herself very commendably. Question : " Was 
Mam or Eve most culpable in paradise V Mrs. President ad- 
dressed the assembly with great propriety, just accent and pleasing 
voice; explaining the nature of the meeting ; justifying ladies ap- 
pearing to speak in a public promiscuous assembly. She was fre- 
quently applauded ; on ascending the chair, she turned round and 
gracefully saluted the company, discovering perfect self-possession, 
void of all embarrassment. The other speakers also acquitted 
themselves laudably, and were frequently clapped. Some spoke, I 
won't say argued, on one side, some on the other ; very little 
serious argument, unless declamation, quotations from Hudibras, etc. 
can be so denominated. The subject afforded matter for mirth, but 
the most serious speeches turned against the mother of us all. 

The concluding speech was foreign to the question ; the subject 
was the term " congress." The speakers were lively, and their wit 
and humor produced shouts of laughter. The principal speaker in- 
troduced her speech by observing that the word being understood 
here as implying rebellion, she at first apprehended American 
ladies were coming over in shoals to seduce the young gentlemen 
from our island ladies ; but after considering the subject, and being 
informed by a clergyman, to whom she applied for its meaning, had 
found that the word has a harmless signification, and had been used 
on this side the water in treaties of peace, as the congress of am- 
bassadors of belligerent powers at Nimeguen, Aix-la-Chapelle, etc., 
that it is derived from a Latin word signifying a meeting together 
to compose or reunite discordant parties. She was pleased to hear 
it was not likely to give disgust to our state physicians, who were 
laudably employing their skill and labor in administering harsh 
medicines to the disordered members of our consumptive empire. 
After a series of lively observations, she closed by wishing success 
to the institution, and that it may do honor to female eloquence. 
Question being put, whether Adam was most in fault, vote by three 



296 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1780. 

hands only, negatived by one. Thus Eve stands acquitted in this 
female school of oratory of being the most guilty, though I fancy 
the major part considered as females are not so clear in the affir- 
mative. 

Mrs. Hayley, the great frequenter of all public city assemblies, 
■was there. A small interruption happened by a dirty boy's mixing 
with the company ; the president declared her surprise at it. In 
all large public collections of people of mixed character, persons 
of unruly disposition are to be found, who will indulge themselves 
in undue freedoms, if it can be done with impunity. 

Dec. 14. Col. Browne called on me twice to-day in my ab- 
sence. 

Dec. 15. Called on Col. Browne and also on Arthur Savage ; 
both out, the latter gone to Bristol with William Cabot. In my 
way, met Thomas Hutchinson, whom I had not seen for four years. 

Dec. 17. Afternoon, accompanied by John Parkhouse, I attended 
the famous Herries' chapel of ease, St. John square ; he preached 
in an animated style, with oratorical delivery, to an audience 
crowded and respectable. 

Dec. 19. Called on Mr. R. Clarke, in company with Col. 
Browne ; we were invited to Mr. Copley's picture-room, wherein 
were two exhibition pieces, viz., Brooke Watson's wonderful de- 
liverance from a great shark that had twice seized him, and had 
bitten off one leg. The other piece, Copley's own family, compri- 
sino- himself, wife, and three children, and his father-in-law, Mr. 
Clark. Here is also a large piece representing the House of Lords, 
when Lord Chatham, in the height of his patriotic zeal, was seized 
with a fit which proved fatal ; the piece represents the moment 
of his beino" raised from the floor on which he had fallen, and was 
lyino- in the arms and lap of the Duke of Cumberland, his son-in- 
law; number of lords sixty, in their dresses, attitudes, etc., either as 
they then stood, or as the painter fancied they might, faces taken 
from life as they successively sat for this purpose. It is to be en- 
graved for a print, deliverable next August twelvemonth, at three 
guineas each. Mrs. Hay appeared in view so very like, that the 
first glance announced for whom it was intended. After amusing 
ourselves for some time, took leave and separated at door. This 
day removed my lodgings to No. 10 Furnival's Inn court. Appear 



1780.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 297 

ances are for enjoyment here; experience manifold has taught me 
not to rely on them, nor shall I draw up a verdict till supported by 
issue at departure. 

Bee. 20. William Jackson called, (he lodges at No. 5 this 
court,) and passed the evening till tea. 

Dec. 21. More snow has fallen than has been known to be on 
ground at once, or in same space of time, for many years. 

Dec. 23. Samuel H. Sparhawk called to let me know he had 
received letters from New England so late as October 19. Mr. 
Jos. Green died about three weeks ago. 

Dec. 26. Called on Mr. Peters ; he was absent, being officially 
engaged at church, this being St. Andrew's day. 

Dec. 28. This is my birth-day, allowing for difference occasioned 
by altering the style. This day I have completed a circle of sixty-four 
years ; but to how little moral advantage, it humiliates me to think. 
May the short remainder of my probationary state be marked with 
brighter lines, and the review of the interval, the present and last 
hour of my rational life, when that awful and important hour shall 
arrive, yield me a comfort that the retrospect of the past cannot 
afford. 

Being at Furnival's Inn Coffee-house, Mr. Peters and a Metho- 
dist parson entered, joining company and conversation for a short 
time. 

Dec. 29. Paid my first mourning visit to Mr. Joseph Green's 
widow ; she seems greatly oppressed with grief. 

Dec. 31. Attended public worship at Essex-street chapel. 



38 



298 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [178 1. 



CHAPTER XV. 

London, January 1, 1781, The first day of the new year; 
may it please God to crown the endeavors of good men to bring- 
about that desirable event, peace and quietness among the con- 
tending powers, before another annual revolution, to the honor and 
safety of all concerned. 

Jan. 2. Dined at Barley-mow, Salisbury court. Meeting 
Harrison Gray, learnt the capture of the vessel in which S. Conant 
sailed from Holland ; she was carried into Cork. By this means, 
several letters I addressed to different friends are thrown into the 
abyss. 

Jan. 3. I know not whether the mercantile portion of the na- 
tion consider aught but present objects — view of gain by priva- 
teering — always successful at commencement of war. Ships of 
the enemy being generally unprepared for defence, fall an easy 
prey ; they therefore seem pleased with the spirited declaration of 
the sovereign, if it may be called, of war. Letters of marque and 
reprisal offered. By Lloyd's books three hundred Dutch merchant 
ships are taken and safely moored in our ports, and more than three 
thousand sailors. But this additional weight, added to that of 
France, Spain and America, already on our hands, the successful 
issue of which we seem to have but too much cause to despair of, 
calls for united bravery, intrepidity, and efforts that this nation has 
in times of like imminent danger exerted, and by divine favor, with 
unexpected success. May we still experience the same kind and 
favorable interposition, and make more grateful returns. Dined in 
Salisbury court. Samuel Sparhawk diank tea with me, and told 
me of my townsman Col. Browne's advancement to the gover- 
norship of Bermuda ; an unexpected elevation, and I doubt not 
acceptable to himself, encumbered, as he is, with a wife and three 
children. 

Jan. 6. Mr. Peters and Mr. Erving called; the latter's lodg- 
ings, Charlotte-street, Islington. 



1781.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 299 

Jan. 9. Accompanied Mr. Dalglish to Covent Garden Theatre ; 
comedy, Busy-body, — entertainment, the tasty performance of 
Freemason procession, — scenery pompous, former part to my taste 
unpleasing — Harlequin in dumb show ; why he is said to be a 
freemason, I cannot divine, unless investing him with a square, 
one of their badges, suspended by a ribbon and hung round his 
neck, so constitutes him. The skipping about of an antic dressed 
out in a merry-andrew's coat, his face covered with black crape, 
and a wooden sword by his side, put on for the purpose of show- 
ing how ready he is at drawing it forth to slap his brother antics 
on face, shoulders, etc. ; displaying the wonders of his transforming 
power in converting trunks, dogs, and chests, into watch-boxes, 
arbors, chimney-pieces, etc. ; his principal aim being to make 
grimaces and wry faces at his favorite Columbine, who, by the 
way, is a fine-looking girl, and made to be deeply in love with a 
fantastic ape, without one probable reason for it. These species of 
pantomime seem at present greatly in vogue ; to arraign the taste 
is perhaps conceited ; but this remark will never come to light, if 
ever, till, I dare say, it will be as despised as it is now relished, 
especially by the more enlightened class; as to the lower, they 
ever were and ever will be too gross for any entertainment above 
the lowest humor. I am, I confess, so totally void of all relish for 
such diversions, that I forbear condemning them, although I consider 
them as a proof among many others of the depravity of the pre- 
sent day. I would fain call it vulgar, but too many box spectators 
seem to enjoy it and join the galleries. I can't, however, but 
believe that all sensible persons do disapprove of these shows as 
unworthy, but dare not openly avow their opinion. The comedy 
was excellent, and well performed ; and much exceeds in point of 
wit, plot, etc., the, to me, flattish sentimental compositions of the 
present day, with a few exceptions. After the silly harlequin had 
skipped behind scenes, a most grand procession began, preceded 
by a standard of light red color, the ground of all the following 
ones : the first contained a scroll whereon was painted in large 
golden letters, ENOCH, the first grand-master ; his representative 
following, accompanied by two attendants ; at a little interval ap- 
peared, NIMROD, second grand-master, with his representative 
and four attendants ; next was brought the front of the temple of 



300 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1781. 

the Sun at Thebes; afterwards, the great pyramid of Egypt and the 
sphynx ; then, front of the temple of Jerusalem, built by King 
Solomon ; Pharaoh's two daughters next followed, attended by 
their Egyptian and Jewish female and male servants, the high- 
priest properly habited, holding a pot of incense in his hand, — 
breast-plate, and other insignia on, — closing with a long stream of 
attendants and servants in rear ; next, front of Pantheon at Rome, 
the founder or repairer, for it is uncertain which, M. Agrippa's 
name in a list under the capital ; then, temple of Jerusalem, built 
by Herod, destroyed by Vespasian, represented as in flames ; next, 
William the Conqueror, and behind him was carried a prospective 
view of the tower of London, as if built by him ; then, Edward 
the Third, accompanied by his son clad in black armor, from thence 
denominated the Black Prince, — giving liberty to, and taking the 
chains off the legs of two captive kings, John of France, and 
James II. of Scotland, at the instance of his son, followed by a train 
of attendants ; the front of St. Peter's at Rome then succeeded, 
Julius II. having in his hand a crosier, and on his head a triple 
crown, — alluding to his regal authority : he w^as attended by a 
train of ecclesiastic officers and servants, and had the keys hanging 
to his girdle, as lord chamberlain of the state-rooms in the upper 
regions, and jailer in the lower dungeons ; — and like Jack Ketch, 
who sometimes has a practice of his own office tried on himself, it 
will be a wonder if some of the pontifical jailers, when others suc- 
ceed, have not the keys of lower apartments turned upon them. 

Next in order came Queen Elizabeth, dressed in royal robes, 
and attended by her servants, both state and domestic ; then fol- 
lowed King James, surrounded by court sycophants ; front of 
banqueting-house as it now stands, undefiled and undilapidated ; 
next, Guy Fawkes, in dress of his day, holding a dark lantern, — 
alluding to the gunpowder-plot, — he was forcibly seized and carried 
off; next followed Inigo Jones, the restorer of Greek and Roman 
taste in architecture, preceded by an ensign, having his name in a 
scroll, with the masonic letters D. G. W. ; then came Charles II. and 
attendants, followed by the front of St. Paul's, the present noble 
structure, founded in his reign ; at length appeared William and 
Mary, the former holding a sheet of paper with this inscription, 
Bill of Rights, — words that I wish could be indelibly impressed 



1781.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 301 

on the minds of kings, lords, commons, courtiers, and people of 
this island ; for, on the practical remembrance of this short sen- 
tence, depends the secm-ity of this unparalleled constitution, which 
I verily fear is near its dissolution. Then followed the grand- 
master, seated in a magnificent alcove; then an arch, having an 
inscription, Ancient Masonry ; then two pillars, on the top of each 
a globe, — on one the celestial, the other a terrestrial, — and on a 
list, by which they were kept steady, was inscribed Modern Ma- 
sonry. The last in the procession were Solomon and Pharaoh's 
daughter, seated on a throne of state, and over it a rich canopy 
raised by six steps ; on the bottom steps, on each side, stood two 
lions guardant, between them two young Egyptian damsels, dressed 
in white, — and on each side of the throne, all the principal per- 
sonages of the procession ranged, with standards displayed, made 
a grand and glittering appearance. A fine chorus was sung, and 
when ended, a universal shout of applause rang through the 
house, and the curtain dropped. 

Jan. 10. An extremely cold day, scarcely ever exceeded in 
New England ; abode within all day, glad to have a shelter, which 
many a poor wretch wants. I never felt stronger reasons for grati- 
tude ; may the sense of it ever remain on my mind, for sure I am 
it is a most pleasing sensation or feeling. 

Jan. 12. Mr. Timmins brought me a packet from Salem, by 
way of St. Kitt's, containing a long letter from Dr. Holyoke, and 
one from Richard Ward. 

Jan. 15. Colonel Erving and Mr. Arthur Savage called. 

Jan. 16. Visited Mr. Wiswall ; accompanied Mr, Dalglish, at 
his desire, to a visit at Samuel H. Sparhawk's. A second unsuc- 
cessful one to Mr. Hughes, who was keeping his birth-day at his 
sister Hutchin's. 

Jan. 17. Drank tea with Mr. Barnes, his lodgings, No. 5 our 
court ; in conversation till eleven. 

Jan. 19. Visited Treasurer Gray, — he absent ; his son John 
at home. S. H. Sparhawk and Mr. Barnes took tea with me, and 
passed evening ; former says a Mrs. Thompson, arrived from New 
England, informs that people in Massachusetts utter complaints 
and discontents at Congress and the French without restraint; — 
when common sense resumes its reign, as it usually does, sooner 



302 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1781. 

or later, the scales which party zeal had clapped over the eyes of 
the deluded people will fall off, and they will discover the errors 
their own madness and ill-judged submission to leaders of selfish 
wicked schemes have seduced them into. She adds, continental 
dollar bills have, notwithstanding congressional authority, sunk 
to sixteen for one since their emission, though sent abroad for the 
express purpose of restoring their credit ; so ineffectual is human 
power to create something out of nothing; also reports, that taxes 
are risen to such a height as to exceed the produce of the land. 
Those who have left America since the rupture, have brought ac- 
counts so exaggerated that renders it prudent to receive them with 
caution, and not give too hasty credit. However, that the people 
are oppressed with taxes, is notorious ; that they are in want of 
money, of the common essential articles, is also well known ; and 
personal safety is very precarious, etc. Nothing, I presume, but 
despair, under the power of an American and French army, can 
reduce this once happy people. May these destructive locusts soon 
be expelled from the face of the country, and selfish purposes be 
abandoned ; for the true interest of the English government con- 
sists in a friendly and indissoluble union of all its members. 

Jan. 21. To No. 8 Haymarket, to see Lieut. William Browne, 
(my friend Col. Browne's son,) of the 38th regiment ; he had 
departed for Portsmouth in order to take shipping for Gibraltar. 

TO JONATHAN SEWALL, ESQ., BRISTOL. 

London, Jan. 23, 1781. 
Dear Sir : 

A few days since, I received a long letter from our common 
friend, Doctor Holyoke, who informs me that the winter of '79 — 
80, exceeded any since 1740. It began before the middle of 
December, and it should seem, lasted till June nearly ; no vegeta- 
tion taking place till the last week in May ; that the snow con- 
tinued to fall till the 11th of January, when it was between two and 
three feet deep. Not a day in all January, nor till 10th of Feb- 
ruary, was it warmer at eight o'clock A. M. than twenty-eight 
degrees of Farenheit's scale, — which I fancy pretty thoroughly 
cooled them ; and, on the 29th of January, the mercury stood at 
six degrees below zero within doors, and abroad sunk tw^o degrees 



178 1.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 303 

lower. Under all our distresses, we here enjoy, he says, one pros- 
pect promising public happiness in future : — four or five years 
since, less than half a pint of Siberian wheat was sown among 
them, producing so incredibly, that, in the northern counties of 
New England especially, there is reason to believe the harvest 
this year will yield seed enough for the whole state another year. 
Notwithstanding the evil doings of our countrymen, are not 
you pleased to think they are likely to become independent of the 
southern colonies, and eat, like the inhabitants of the other im- 
proved countries on the face of the earth. Christian's food, and be 
no longer confined to that which everywhere else is raised only for 
the nourishment of horses and poultry ? I am glad at heart, but fear 
that even this blessing, like food taken into a disordered stomach 
abounding in acrimonious juices, but the more increases its morbid 
state — for this unexpected supply, and at this juncture, will afford 
the crafty, political, and spiritual misguides among them but too 
plausible an occasion to trumpet forth this seemingly seasonable 
interposition of divine Providence in their favor, and confirm and 
harden them, amidst all their sufferings, in their infatuated destruc- 
tive resistance to a power as necessary in my mind to their safety 
and honor as a parent to his children in an infant state. Nor do I 
fancy it would be a difficult matter for the aforementioned gentry 
to persuade them that Moses and Joshua's prophetical declarations 
to the children of Israel, that they should possess a land flowing 
with milk and honey, and be filled with the finest of the wheat — 
the two former of which you know they had plenty enough before, 
— did ultimately refer to themselves, was typical of them, and was 
now accomplishing — so entirely do they seem to have surrendered 
up their understandings to the insinuations and influence of their 
guides. The last year's taxes in Massachusetts were more than 
commensurate to the produce of their lands, under the best impz'ove- 
ment ; if the force that keeps them under such deplorable circum- 
stances is not insurmountable, their political folly exceeds any re- 
corded in history. 

With perfect esteem, your friend, 

S. CURWEN. 



304 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1781. 

TO REV. ISAAC SMITH, SIDMOUTH. 

London, Jan. 24, 1781. 
Dear Sir: 

Were I to write a theme, as you know was customary in the 
last years at our schools, and should choose Tully's celebrated line 
for the subject, " cedant arma toga, concedat laurea linguce,'" our 
Massachusetts might be quoted as an example. For amidst the 
din and clash of arms, the hurry, tumult, and confusion of war, as 
though they were enjoying the sweetest blessings of a well estab- 
lished, secure peace, the rulers of the present government there 
have instituted and incorporated a society for promoting literature 
and the liberal arts, etc., by the name of the ^^ American Acade- 
my of Arts and Scie7ices;'' of which the following is a short rela- 
tion, received lately from my friend Dr. Holyoke : " Our legisla- 
ture has lately incorporated sundry gentlemen in the several coun- 
ties, to the number of sixty, enabling them to hold real and personal 
estate, and has granted them other ample powers and privileges, for 
the purpose of promoting those arts and sciences which may be 
either useful or ornamental to society." To which he adds, " I 
doubt not, you will wish the society may flourish ; the cause of 
science being the cause of humanity." I do fervently wish its en- 
couragement and increase; glad at heart that they have been dis- 
posed to promote any plan to soften that ferocity and hardness of 
heart which war, rapine, and plunder have lately spread among 
them, and which the wisest and most prudent among them have 
viewed with horror. I have never read this paragraph in my 
friend's letter, but it reminded me of a line in Horace, unless I mis- 
take the author, Emollit mores nee sinit essejeros* I was, for a 
time, at a loss to account for their choice of this particular period 
for such a purpose, considering the great and important business 
upon their hands of forming a new state, etc., but am now fully 
satisfied the foregoing hint was the true and pressing cause. 

Dr. Langdon has quitted the chair of the presidency of Harvard 
College, but for what reason I am not acquainted. 

The late emission of paper by Congress cannot find credit 
enough to obtain a currency — the old bills are eighty for one. 

I remain truly yours, S. Curwen. 

* Letters soften and refine the character. 



1781.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 305 

TO ROWLAND SAVAGE, ESQ., HALIFAX. 

London, Jan. 25, J 781. 
Dear Sir: 

By mere accident, going to the " Blue Post," almost opposite 
my lodgings, 1 saw Mrs. Savage, which gave me great pleasure ; 
by her I was informed of your appointment at Halifax, being the 
first intelligence concerning you since my ill-omened departure from 
America. Hope your post affords a genteel subsistence; in these 
times, no unfavorable circumstance to refugees, in which case I most 
heartily congratulate you. Wishing you a supply and continuance 
of all needful blessings, I am your friend, 

S. Cur WEN. 

Jan. 27. Mr. Barnes called on me to inquire about Colonel 
Erving's lodgings, Islington. 

Jan. 28. At St. Paul's — Dr. Whitfield preached ; company, 
as usual, small but respectable. Passed an hour at Gray's Inn 
Coffee-house; received a list of the seized and forfeited estates in 
Massachusetts. 

Feb. 1. Dined at White Heart inn, Bishopgate-street, at Mr. 
Dalglish's invitation, in company with Messrs. H. Hughes, Hutch- 
ins, John Inman, and Whitlock, 

Feb. 5. At Westminster Hall, being the important day of 
Lord George Gordon's trial ; floor stowed as bale goods in a ship, 
and as closely packed. Soon took myself off, rather than hazard 
death by suffocation: — the collection was miscellaneous. Trial 
lasted till four o'clock next morning, when he was acquitted on 
the score of insanity. 

Feb. 6, Accompanied Mr. Arthur Savage to Clerkenwell, by 
his desire, to view an old secularized religious house, called Priory, 
now belonging to the Duke of Portland, tenanted by a carpenter 
and undertaker, who civilly accompanied us through; there is now 
nothing remaining of old buildings but a small portion of cloisters, 
at the end whereof is cut, " Jordan Bridget, Murrell Bridget, 
founders, 1100." In a distant part are small remains of a wall, 
supposed to be in a state of decay, and the two arches, a larger 
and a smaller, the former ornamented, and both portions of a circle, 

39 



306 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1781. 

which form prevailed before the introduction of the Gothic or Nor- 
raan styles. Returning from thence, turned into a court of several 
narrow alleys, filled with small huttish kind of houses, the habita- 
tions of filth and vice, named Blueberry Alley, notorious for its con- 
stant supply of Tyburn. Ten have been dragged out from thence 
in one session, for thievery and other enormities, and graced the 
halter. Met our late Mr. Fisher; I turned in with him to Mr. 
Hutchins' auction room, who was then employed in disposing of 
natural and artificial curiosities, from the South Sea, just imported 
in the " Resolution." 

Feh. 7. Visited Col. Browne and lady ; meeting Mr. Dalglish, 
took him with me, and after a short stay departed to Mr. Tim- 
mins's ; thence to Mr. Arthur Savage's, Brompton-row. 

Feh. 9. Mr. Dalglish called for me to accompany him to 
Greenwich Hospital ; walking to Gracechurch-street, after half an 
hour's delay, entered stage and soon arrived there, and thoroughly 
examined it within and without. Dined in a detached room be- 
longing to a tavern in the town, built and projecting over the river 
Thames, from whence is a view of the Isle of Dogs, Blackwall and 
Long Reach. Returned in stage ; in our passage was told the fol- 
lowing : — an inhabitant of this town walks every day and has done 
so for some years back, from seven to eight miles, having measured 
within the period from whence the computation began to some 
months since, forty-five thousand miles. Evening at Crown Tavern 
Lodge ; Quick, the celebrated comedian, was raised to masonry — 
a humorous, funny companion, who I fancy intends to entertain the 
public with the secrets of this society. 

Feb. 10. Accompanied Mr. Barnes to St. Nicholas College 
Abbey, Old Fish-street. Dr. Porteus, Bishop of Chester, preached 
an excellent and elegant sermon, in style and composition, and 
pleasingly delivered. 

Feh. 13. Visited by Parson Peters, and Parson Clarke, late a 
townsman ; from a cold taken on board a prison ship in Boston 
harbor, to which he was consigned by the patriots in punishment 
of toryism, he has lost his voice, and is scarce able to articulate. 
This, added to his deafness, renders him a lonely, pitiable object; 
he has received twenty pounds per annum from the society for pro- 
pagating the gospel — government declining to give him a settled 



1781.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 307 

stipend, though it has once and again presented him with a scanty- 
gratuity. 

Feb. 15. At Col. Browne's. Mrs. Browne informed me of 
her treatment at Salem and Boston, after her husband's departure 
to England. 

Feb. 16. At Bow church to hear an annual sermon to society 
for propagating the gospel in partibus transmarinis ; Dr. Hurd, 
bishop of Lichfield and Coventry preached ; present the lord may- 
or, two sheriffs, two archbishops, Butler of Oxford, Thomas of 
Rochester, and Markham of York. 

Feb. 19. Evening, at an address on heads, exhibited in trans- 
parency, as follows : Sterne, a pathetic apostrophe ; Capt. Cook, 
the celebrated circumnavigator, an encomium, etc. Breslau's sur- 
prising tricks on cards followed, interluded with music, and an 
imitation of the thrush, blackbird, sky-lark, nightingale, wood-lark 
and quail. 

Feb. 24. To theatre to see Mrs. Cowley's new play ; unfor- 
tunately it was hissed off the stage just before the conclusion of the 
last act ; being in its progress of acting alternately and frequently 
hissed by its foes and cheered by its friends ; the latter proved the 
minority, and therefore unsuccessful, as all in minorities are in 
state and church, as well as theatres. Many came for the express 
purpose of supporting or damning it ; her husband, a writer in one 
of the daily papers, employs his pen in criticising works of all other 
stage writers, and has by the severity of his remarks raised up a 
host of determined foes, to crush whatever proceeds from his quar- 
ter; though no foreign considerations were needed to banish this 
piece from the stage, its own intrinsic unworthiness was rtiore than 
enough; being a low performance, and unworthy the pen of the 
author of" Belle's Stratagem" and " WTio's the Dupe." Knowing the 
writer and her connections, I feel severely for them, especially, too, 
as her brother is a fellow lodger, whose exquisite delicacy of feel- 
ing must be cruelly wounded on this occasion. The prologue and 
epilogue were excellent, and did great credit to the performers, Mr. 
Lewis and Miss Young, who were rewarded with universal ap- 
plause. 

Feb. 26. Drank tea at the widow Greene's in company with 
two Misses Joye of Boston, by whom I was informed of the follow- 



308 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1781. 

ing : viz., a younger son of Francis Greene from Boston, who was 
born deaf and dumb, who was under the tuition of a person in 
Scotland, in the course of one year arrived to the power of forming 
articulate sounds, and can now converse on any subject so intelli- 
gibly as to be understood without difficulty by those acquainted 
with him ; music only excepted ; he writes letters with propriety 
and even elegance. This person engages to instruct dumb pupils 
in all languages, and has examples of his success to prove his art ; 
he has more than a hundred now under his management. A pro- 
posal is about to be presented to the king by the Duke of Mon- 
tague for establishing academies in several parts of England, to 
instruct children of the poorer sort in this unhappy predicament, on 
a public foundation ; — may it succeed, and thereby be brought into 
usefulness many of promising parts. This plan is suggested by Dr. 
Hunter, whose avocations render it impracticable to himself. 

March 8. Met three of my countrymen at three different 
times, Dr. Perkins, Mr. R. Clarke, and Mr. Elisha Hutchinson. 

March 10. Col. now Governor Browne, called on me with 
complaints of my neglect, which sundry avocations caused. 

March 11. At Charing Cross just as there was passing a most 
pompous procession of funeral coaches, attended on each side by 
numerous flambeaux-men holding in their hands lighted torches in 
branches of four. 

March 12. Passed eight hours at Col. Browne's in a friendly 
tete-a-tete. 

March 22. To Westminster Hall, and passing through, came 
to foot of steps leading to the lobby of the House of Commons, 
where, seeing an officer standing unemployed, I inquired about the 
disposition and arrangement of rooms belonging to, and under and 
adjoining the pile called St. Stephen's Chapel, lords' house, star 
chamber, painted and Jerusalem chamber ; and from him received 
a more particular and satisfactory account than I had ever before 
had. Proceeding thence to the lobby of the commons house, I 
found it filled with gentry in livery ; just peeping in, I went di- 
rectly to the hatch leading to the antechamber of the gallery, which 
the old enfeebled keeper opened to me. After the delay of a 
quarter of an hour, I obtained entrance, and found many persons 
there before me. The house was very full below ; among others 



1781.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 309 

Lord North, ■whom I discovered on the treasury bench by his blue 
ribbon. The members sit with their hats on, but always uncover 
when they rise to speak, and on departure salute the chair by a 
bow. The speaker is always covered, and with the clerks habited 
in black gowns; after some time he commanded to order, and 
some members to their seats ; then directing his looks to a Mr. 
Minchin with a motion of his head, the member arose, when a pro- 
found silence ensued, and continued to be strictly observed through 
the whole of the speech. He began by informing the house of a 
motion he had to make and the subject of it, viz. : That a regular 
and intelligible account should be rendered of the money granted 
by parliament for the navy, for which inquiry and motion he as- 
signed three reasons ; one being the waste in expenditure. The 
proof of this article arose from thirteen ships, of which he men- 
tioned one instance only as a specimen ; the others were in the 
same predicament. The Narcissus, in 1772, was estimated at 
<£3,000, to complete with guns and stores ; on estimate of 1778 
she was put in at .£5,000 ; in 1779 ^65,500 ; and in 1780 at 
je3,600 ; in the total jei7,100. At the end of that period she lay 
in dock untouched, without a farthing's worth of stores or one gun 
on board, and in the same unfit, unrepaired condition as at first. 
During the course of his speech he was now and then interrupted 
by a murmur on the other side the house, which was at times suc- 
ceeded by " hear him, hear him" and very generally attended to. 
Sir George Young followed, but was less minded. Sir Charles 
Bunbury spoke next, who made a long and more formal oration on 
same side, pretty well listened to, and frequently complimented 
with " hear him, hear him, y" which expression was also used to two 
men who followed, viz. Admiral Keppel, who spoke well, and 
with some warmth, and Sir Hugh Palliser, who was called by 
name by his party. He arose and began by justifying the admi- 
ralty, attributing the present state of the navy, though respectable, 
to malignant influence of party, which has, he said, ditfused itself 
effectually into the king's dock -yards, teaching the inmates to form 
associations, whereby wise measures of the admiralty had in some 
degree been defeated. He having finished and set down, the house 
resounded with "Burke, Burke ;" hereupon the Irish orator arose, 
and in a loud and manly voice, with singular energy and compass 



310 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1781. 

of expression, and a torrent of eloquence, reprobated Sir Hugh's 
account, exposed the futility of his arguments, excited universal 
attention, and frequently raised more than a smile in the features 
of his listening hearers. I should have mentioned Mr. Penton, one 
of the navy board, who rose next to the motion maker, and justi- 
fied the accounts rendered, as a mode adopted and by experience 
found the best for more than a century past ; to which the reply 
was that he had mistaken the meaning of the objections in three 
particulars. 

March 23. With Mr. Danforth fetched a long walk to 
Session Green in Paddington Road. 

TO DR. EDWARD A. HOLYOKE, SALEM. 

London, March 23, 1781. 
Dear Sir : 

Meeting the bearer this afternoon, he informed me of his in- 
tended departure to-morrow for New-York. The shortness of the 
warning puts it out of my power to be so particular in my answer 
to your agreeable favor as it was my determination to be. In my 
next, if I can procure a conveyance not exposed to state inquisition, 
I shall fulfil my first purpose. I am now to acknowledge the 
pleasing and interesting relations yours conveyed, and am glad that 
at any rate our native country is and has been free from those op- 
pressions, sufferings, and distressing evils that intestine commotions 
and rage of civil war have subjected our unhappy fellow-subjects 
in the southern colonies to. Whether you have had real enjoy- 
ments compared to its confessedly happy days within our remem- 
brance, I pretend not to affirm or deny ; the accounts from those 
who have for these two or three years since escaped from thence 
and took refuge here, are such as do not excite the most fervent 
wishes in the breasts of our countrymen here, who enjoy peace and 
the comforts of life, to return back again soon. One would think 
from the establishment of an academy of arts and sciences at a time 
when the country is oppressed by a destructive war, yet uncertain 
of the event, that the rulers of your state labored under Vetourdie 
des hommes du bois, or possessed the magnanimity of the old 
Roman senators ; be that as it may, I wish its continuance and 
success. 



1781.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 311 

I am now going to relate a fact you would perhaps have 
thought incredible ; the day on which I completed two hundred 
and ninety-six weeks' residence on this island, favored me with a 
sight I had never before had, of that extraordinary person, Lord 
North j though I confess curiosity had more than a score of times 
led me to the lobby of the commons house and the gallery, but 
accident procured me what my wishes and endeavors had failed in 
hitherto : — for carelessly strolling without design into Westminster 
Hall, I obtained admission to the gallery, where I had an opportu- 
nity of seeing him with a full treasury bench and house. The 
great Irish born orator, Mr. Burke, spoke, and his thundering 
elocution fixed the attention of the house, and his wit and satire 
diverted them, and produced peals of laughter. More it is needless 
and would not be prudent to mention. There are some appear- 
ances that the Empress of Russia's mediation may be attended 
with salutary eflfects. May a stop be put to the further effusion of 
English blood ; too much has been spilt already in this destructive 
quarrel for independence. 

Very truly your friend, 

S. CURWEN. 

April 2. Went to Leicester-square to pay I^.Tr, R. Clarke a 
visit, but seeing a nobleman's carriage at the door, presumed he 
was sitting to Mr. Copley, and that therefore my company may be 
inconvenient. 

April 3. Abel Willard and young Borland called to-day in 
my absence, and left their address. Called on Mr. Dalglish, and 
invited him to accompany me to Woolwich ; he readily complying, 
we walked to Charing Cross and took coach to Greenwich ; the 
stage being gone from thence, we walked to Woolwich, about 
three miles. Passing through the town, we went on towards artillery- 
park, wherein is an immense quantity of brass and iron ordnance, 
mortars and shot of all dimensions ; passing through we arrived at 
the place where the convicts were employed in labor, each hav- 
ing a chain on both legs just long enough for him to walk conve- 
niently, with a string tied thereto reaching to the waist to keep the 
chain from falling down to the ankles. I am told there are about 
five hundred employed, bringing dirt, sand and gravel from barges 



312 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1781. 

on small carts, some in wheeling barrows, others in various 
ways as they are qualified. The effects of their labor is visible in 
a sea wall of earth, six hundred yards long, and having a broad 
convenient footpath on top ; they are now employed in making and 
sodding a new artillery parade. 1 could not refrain from many 
mortifying reflections on the sad necessity human governments are 
under to treat with such severity so many of our fellow-creatures, 
furnished with the noble powers of reason and understanding, and 
capable of employing them to the most useful purposes. Dined at 
Crown and Anchor, and returned by eight o'clock. 

Jipril 5. Mr. Arthur Savage and Mr. F. calling, we went to 
St. Lawrence Jewry, to hear a sermon to the governors of the Lon- 
don Hospital, from the excellent and worthy Bishop of Chester, 
Dr. Porteus. He possesses a good enunciation and pleasant voice, 
somewhat earnest, style elegant, periods happy and finely turned, 
without any appearance of art or affectation. On the whole he is 
a delightful speaker, never failing to instruct and charm a serious 
and attentive hearer. 

Received a letter from Rev. Thomas Barnard, inclosed in one 
from Benjamin Pickman at Warwick. 

A'pril 6. Drank tea at Mr. Copley's, with whom his father-in- 
law, Mr. R. Clark, resides ; all the family present. 

April 8. Accompanied Col. Browne to hear the famed pulpit 
orator, Mr. Duchee, late of Philadelphia, at Tavistock chapel, 
Broad-court, Longacre, who figures even in London. His per- 
formance, in point of language and delivery, greatly pleased us. 
Dined and passed the evening at Col. Browne's. 

April 11. Mr. Sparhawk, Rev. Mr. Peters, and Rev. Mr. 
Clark took tea with me. 

April IS. Good-Friday. To Westminster Abbey ; entering, 1 
found the choir shut ; no service, or over, but could not learn which ; 
so totally ignorant or unconcerned are people here in general of 
every thing not their immediate business or pursuit. Returning, I 
stepped in at Whitehall chapel, the Dean of Rochester was preach- 
ing. Lord North and Judge Oliver attended at same place, though 
I knew it not till informed by the latter, at whose house I drank 
tea, a/id there met Mr. and Mrs. Elisha Hutchinson. Since my 
last visit to Westminster Abbey, to my surprise I find a white mar- 



1781.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 313 

ble monument erected to the honor of Dr. Isaac Watts ; he is 
represented as clad in a loose dress, sitting in a thoughtful posture, 
his head covered with lank hairs resting on his left hand ; his right 
leaning on a table, holding a pen, denoting his having just finished 
a sentence ; his arm seized and grasped by a female figure, in loose 
attire, which I suppose to represent one of the virtues. 

April 14. Visited Mr. Haddocks the florist's garden at Cam- 
berwell ; a fine show of auriculas and hyacinths. 

Mpril 17. Accompanied Thomas Goldthwait to Wiswall's 
lodgings by his desire, he having called on me for that purpose, 
in order to offer him the living at Dunmore in Essex, which the 
rector gave Mr. Goldthwait leave to offer to any American clergy- 
man out of employ. The terms offered were fifty pounds salary, 
and considerable emoluments ; for life, or as long as Mr. Wiswall 
shall please ; the neighborhood is represented as agreeable. Met 
Samuel Porter and sundry others of ray countrymen in the Park. 

Jlpril 18. Evening at Covent Garden, to see " Ji new way 
to pay old debts ;" entertainment, " Barnaby Brittle ;" this part 
by Quick, who also acted Justice Greedy. In the whole were 
some humorous strokes, — many low ones, — all applauded. 

Jlpril 19. Went to Mr. Benjamin Thompson's lodgings, Pall 
Mall. 

April 21. Went to see a model of ancient Rome ; scale, one 
inch to ninety feet, making a square of twelve feet : but the topo- 
graphical or ground scale does not hold with respect to height of 
buildings, pillars, etc., appearing on a larger scale. Meeting Mr. 
Timmins, received an invitation to dine ; and at two o'clock set 
off for his house on foot ; in the meantime, Mr. Wiswall coming 
to my door, instead of entering pursued his design of walking. 
Directed our way through the fields to Islington Spa, Saddler's 
Wells, Bagnigge Wells, places he had never before seen. Re- 
turned by the way of Hatton Garden or street ; at Mr. Timmins's 
met Gilbert Harrison ; returned home modo pedestri. 

April 25. Rambled with Col. Browne round Mary-le-Bone ; 
in the neighborhood of a spot, late gardens, I saw for first time 
an old brick building called Queen Mary's country seat, in pretty 
nearly the same condition she left it more than two centuries since j 
being in a villa some miles from the city of London, in its then 

40 



314 JOURNAL AND LETTERS, [178L 

circumscribed limits, three-fourths of the way to it now built being 
then country. It is low studded and lofty roof, small windows, 
many juttings and projections ; is now in private hands, the Duke 
of Portland's, and is used as a boarding-school. The grounds re- 
main unaltered. 

Ajyril 26. Mr. Goldthwait and Mr, Danforth dined with me ; 
at five we departed by assignment to Mrs. Hay's ; Col. Browne 
and lady were to have been of the party, which accident prevented, 
"We had Mr, and Mrs. Atkinson, late of Boston, and Mr. Greene, 
who in dress equalled a nobleman of the highest rank and quality, 
girded with a military side weapon, 

April 21. Colonel Erving and Mr. Dalglish called ; the latter 
for me to accompany him to the commons' house. The subject of 
debate was the East India officers, — the motion by Lord North ', 
his opponents were Burke, Charles J. Fox, etc. 

Jifril 28. Visited my friend Governor Browne ', confined by 
an ill turn which seized him violently. I called to acquaint Mrs, 
Browne, that " Belle's Slrafeigem" was to be acted to-nighty 
having engaged to accompany her to see it. 

April 29, Sunday. At Essex House chapel. Dr. Priestley 
preached an excellent discourse ; proving beyond contradiction 
that religion and virtue are the only just sources of true delight and 
joy, or as he modified the language, of settled, calm serenity of 
mind. It was a discourse worthy a Christian divine, and happy 
would those be on whose minds those blessed truths were im- 
pressed in indelible characters. Rev. Mr. Wiswall was by my in- 
vitation my fellow-worshipper at Essex House. Afternoon service, 
Mr. Lindsay preached. My companion drank tea with me, ex- 
pressing in conversation his professional dislike of Mr. Lindsay's 
attempt to reform the liturgy. Religious prejudice is the unhappy 
leaven of a narrow education, and manifests a fettered mind. I 
hope I have sufficient reasons to rejoice that mine is free from 
those manacles. I plainly see it may be politically useful to state 
managers and hierarchists, whose views extend not beyond this 
present mortal state ; but in no view is it to be supported on the 
grounds of advancing the cause of truth and manly sentiment, and 
genuine, unadulterated Christianity. 

April 30. Entered Col. and Mrs. Browne's name with my 



1781.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 315 

own for admission some days hence at British Museum ; list filled 
for two or three days. 

May 4- Dined at Col. Browne's, there heard of Mrs. Sar- 
gent's death. Evening waited on Mrs. Browne to Covent Garden 
theatre, to see " The Duenna.'^ 

May 7. To Mr. Maddocks' at Walworth, with Mr. Dalglish, to 
see his fine show of tulips, which unfavorable weather deforms 
greatly, preventing the beautiful, pleasing display that might other- 
wise be expected. 

May 8. Passed forenoon at the public exhibition of paintings, 
sculpture, and drawings of the Royal Academy in Somerset House, 
Strand. A great concourse of well dressed, genteel people, as 
usual ; large exhibition room crowded, but my good fortune secured 
an advantageous seat, almost central, which from arrangement and 
construction of room and pictures, yielded a fuller view and happier 
light ; I kept in close connection with a gentleman of taste and 
judgment, disposed to communicate, and seeming hap[)y to show 
off" and please ; by him I was entertained and instructed. 

May 23. This day at eleven o'clock entered British Museum. 
Dr. Woide, the transcriber and publisher, complaisantly showed 
me the Alexandrian manuscript of the New Testament, favored me 
with many ingenious remarks, and read me several passages which 
I confess I should without his assistance have found it difficult to 
hobble through, from the peculiar manner of writing then used. 
It is said to be older than the Arian controversy, and is without 
the seventh verse of the fifth chapter 1st Epistle of St. John. It is 
written in Greek capitals, without distinction of points or words, 
letters following in equi-distant spaces. A fac simile copy is now 
preparing by my informant, who appears learned, and is very 
obliging. After having gone through part of our course in the 
rooms, my companions Col. and Mrs. Browne appeared and joined 
us. We were attended by Dr. Solander; some of our company 
were persons of distinction, Lady Dowager Wynne and her young 
son the baronet, and several others whose names I have forgotten. 
Among other curiosities were shown us King Edward Vlth's 
journal, written with his own hand — volumes of royal letters, etc. 
It seems all letters from the princes of Europe to one another are 
preserved, and after death of writer sent back to their respective 



316 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1781. 

courts ; they are of one size — seal never broken, a ribbon through 
the wax is cut in order to open it. Dr. Solander showed us an 
oyster-shell of a roundish form, about four inches over, which he 
said was valued at a hundred guineas; another larger beside it, of 
less brilhant water, of no more value than ten ; they both had a 
faint mother of pearl cast. On returning home found a letter from 
Arthur Savage, informing me of Mr. Thompson's compliments and 
wish to see me at eleven o'clock to-morrow, at his lod2;ino;s. 

May 24. Went early in order to be at Mr. Benjamin Thomp- 
son's in time, and being a little before, heard he was not returned 
home from Lord George Gerraaine's, where he always breakfasts, 
dines and sups, so great a favorite is he. To kill half an hour, I 
loitered to the park through the palace, and on second return found 
him at his lodgings ; he received me in a friendly manner, taking 
me by the hand, talked with great freedom, and promised to re- 
member and serve me in the way I proposed to him. Promises are 
easily made, and genteel delusive encouragement the staple arti- 
cle of trade belonging to the courtier's profession. I put no hopes 
on the fair appearances of outward behavior, though it is uncandid 
to suppose all mean to deceive. Some wish to do a service who 
have it not in their power ; all wish to be thought of importance 
and significancy, and this often leads to deceit. This young man, 
when a shop lad to my next neighbor, ever appeared active, good- 
natured and sensible; by a strange concurrence of events, he is 
now under secretary to the American secretary of state, Lord George 
Germaine, a secretary to Georgia, inspector of all the clothing sent 
to America, and Lieut. Col. Commandant of horse dragoons at 
New- York ; his income arising from these sources is, I have been 
told, near seven thousand a year — a sum infinitely beyond his most 
sanguine expectations. He is besides a member of the Royal So- 
ciety. It is said he is of an ingenious turn, an inventive imagina- 
tion, and by being on one cruise in channel service with Sir Charles 
Hardy, has formed a more regular and better digested system for 
signals than that heretofore used. He seems to be of a happy, even 
temper in general deportment, and reported of an excellent heart ; 
peculiarly respectful to Americans that fall in his way.* 

* Afterwards the celebrated Count Rumford. 



1781.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 317 

Mem. A letter has been intercepted and published here, 
thought by some to be a genuine production and unintentionally 
fallen into British hands, signed Geo. Washington, showing his 
opinion of American inability to support this burdensome and ex- 
pensive war, unless France and other allies bestir themselves and 
lend more essential aid than hifherto ; meeting Mr. Paxton and 
Treasurer Gray, they both agreed in sentiment that it is a genuine 
letter, and dictated by real judgment. 

Drank tea at Mrs. Greene's by appointment ; met Mr. Wis- 
wall, who was just going to his cure in Oxford. At his request I 
jumped into the carriage with him, and alighted at Crosskeys, 
Gracechurch-street ; thence to Boar's Head, Eastcheap, and in the 
identical spot where Nym, Pistol, Bardolph, Hal, and Sir John 
Falstaff were wont to assemble together to pass their jovial even- 
ings three hundred years since ; after a regale of punch to the 
remembrance of these jovial blades, we returned to Crosskeys. 

June 5. Visited Governor Browne and Mrs. Browne, both un- 
well ; promised to dine with them the last of the week. 

June 8. Mr. Erving called. 

Ju7ie 1 1. Visited Mrs. Greene and Abel Willard ; drank tea 
with Mrs. Councel ; a Mr. Codner and Jones, both late from Boston, 
there; no material intelligence obtained from them. They say 
provisions are double in price to usual in former happy times. 
Never did an infatuated people wanton away their felicity more 
foolishly. 

June 13. Dined and passed the evening at Col. Browne's. 

June 19. Paid farewell compliments to Elisha Hutchinson, 
going soon to his summer residence at Birmingham. 

June 22. Through Moorfields came across a mountebank or 
stage doctor, on an elevated scaffold, covered with a ragged blanket, 
discoursing to the more dirty-faced ragged mobj demonstrating to 
their satisfaction,'no doubt, the superior excellence of his nostrums to 
those of the dispensary, and the more safe and secure state of patients 
under his management than hospitals and common receptacles of 
sick and wounded poor ; whose lives, health, and ease, he said truly, 
were as dear to them as those of the best gentry or highest nobility 
in the land ; and he further added, of as much use to the public, 
■which for aught I know is equally true. 



318 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1781. 

June 23. Went to Col. Browne's to take the last farewell of 
him and Mrs. Browne, about to depart to his government at Ber- 
muda ; never more expecting to see them again in this world. 

June 25. Young Gould, a Bostonian, bound to New- York, 
offered to take letters. 

June 2Q. Capt. Coombs from New England via New-York, 
whither he fled to escape persecution, as he said, (a Marblehead 
refugee,) called and breakfasted with me ; strolled together to Ty- 
burn, and returned by the square lying north of the city. Carried 
him home to dinner, thence to Chelsea ; returning by Brompton, 
met Treasurer Gray and Mr. Paxton ; the latter at first sight recol- 
lecting, accosted me, according to his usual custom, politely and 
with great openness. The traces of his countenance have been 
lost in my memory, and I should have passed him. 

June 28. At New England Coffee-house ; saw more Bos- 
tonians than for some years past. 

June 29. Went to see the house in which the noted Jane 
Shore died ; found that it was demolished four yi^ars since, and a 
new one erected on the spot, in three small tenements, which 
stand in a lane directly facing Watergruel-row, so called. Was 
informed that an underground communication had been discovered 
between that house and Bishop Bonner's palace in that neighbor- 
hood. 

July 2. Wm. Cabot and Capt. Coombs drank tea with me. 

July 4. Mr. A. Savage and Mr. T. Danforth called and took 
coffee with me. 

July 9. Meeting Mr. Deputy Ellis at a bookseller's in Corn- 
hill, who resolved my doubt about the meaning of the word molten, 
as applied in Scripture to images or figures in brass on metal ; sig- 
nifying melted. 

July 10. Left a note for Mr. A. Savage at Knightsbridge, to 
acquaint him that Mr. Erving had been to appoint to-morrow to 
call on him. 

July 12. Visited Mrs. Hay ; there met two Winthrops, one 
of whom, Thomas Lindall Winthrop,* had lately arrived from New 
England in Captain Timothy Folger's ship. 

♦ The late Lieut. Governor of Massachusetts ; the other was his brother 
Benjamin Winthrop, now of this city, who then resided in London. 



1781.] JOURNAL ANT LETTERS. 319 

July 14. Accompanied Mr. and Mrs. Snelson to Windsor ; 
passing by Hammersmith, stopped at Turnham-Green ; from hence 
to Staines, where we dined. At seven o'clock arrived at " Castle 
and Mermaid,'" Windsor. Evening, walked on terrace in the 
castle ; a pleasing prospect, filled with promiscuous company. 

Windsor, July 15, Sunday. At St. George's chapel, prayers 
at eight ; present, the King, Queen, Princesses Elizabeth and 
Sophia, — about a hundred hearers ; we joined the train to Queen's 
house, or rather to the gates. The King was dressed in blue fly, 
cuffs small, open, and turned up with red velvet, cape of same, 
buttons white, breeches and waiscoat of white cotton, an ordinary 
white wig with a tail ribbon, a round black chip hat, small, as 
used in riding. He is tall, square over the shoulders, large ugly 
mouth, talks a great deal, and shows his teeth too much ; his 
countenance heavy and lifeless, with white eyebrows. Queen of 
the middle size and bulk, height five feet and a-half, — though far 
removed from beautiful, she has an open placid aspect, mouth 
large, foot splay : — at prayers their voices often heard, and they 
appeared devout. They take no state upon them, walk freely 
about the town with only a lord in waiting. At seven, every 
evening after tea, the King, Queen, Prince of Wales, Princess- 
royal, Princesses Sophia and Elizabeth, walk for an hour on ter- 
race half a mile long, amidst two or three thousand people of all 
ranks. The Prince of Wales appears a likely agreeable person, 
far more graceful than his father, who is ungainly. The prince 
affects much the "Jemmy" dress and air; age will doubtless 
soften down the juvenile taste and affectation. The Queen's dress, 
a riding-habit, same color and facings as the King's — a small 
bonnet with a blue feather. Conducted to picture gallery and 
state-rooms ; in one stands the Queen's bed, of a cream-color, 
worked in flowers with silk floss beautifully shaded, about seven 
feet long and six w'ide ; posts fluted, and gilt tester, having in the 
centre an oval compartment, thought to be the richest in England 
except Lady Clifford's at Wybrook, which was wrought and pre- 
sented to her by the late Duchess of Norfolk, — twelve chairs and 
a screen, wrought by her present Majesty's own dihgent hand. In 
the evening on the terrace, the King was in full dress, — blue uni- 
form, sword and cockade ; the Prince of Wales the same. The 



320 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1781. 

Queen in a faint greenish silk full dress, except her head, on which 
she had a bonnet with a feather of the same color as her dress. 

July 16. Crossed the river to Eton college or school, passing 
through cloisters and quadrangles. I learnt from a lad that there 
were three hundred and thirty pupils belonging to the school ; the 
higher class had on gowns and caps of university fashion. After 
breakfast, at castle, to hear the roll-call of Lord Falconberg's regi- 
ment, now on duty, and hear the music ; two bands of which were 
playing while the royal family were walking last evening. Took 
our carriage and departed over Cranbrook bridge, and at two 
o'clock arrived at the Eight, so called, being a little island of two 
acres in the river Thames, opposite Kew, just above the bridge. 
We came hither expecting to have a fine dinner, but the boat had 
been robbed by some Londoners ; were disappointed. Arrived at 
lodgings at seven o'clock. 

July 17. Took Captain Coombs to dine with me at the 
" Thirteen Cantons; " — called on A. Savage. Spoke to Mr. Rowe 
of Treasury about Captain Coombs ; he encourages his application 
to Lord North. 

July 23. Met Mr. R. Clarke on horseback near Charing 
Cross ; walked in Charter-House square and gardens ; am told 
the number of men supported by the founder's munificence is four- 
score, besides forty boys. 

July 25. Rode to Enfield to inquire respecting board ; result 
unsatisfactory. I rambled to the borders of the Chase, now laid 
out in corn and grass, to the great advantage of the neighborhood. 
In this town is a large, and for the age it was built in, a lofty 
house of three floors, which had been the residence of Queen Eli- 
zabeth ; having on the walls within the court, the arms of England 
quartered with the fleur-de-lis of France, and Q. E. inscribed over 
in plaster of Paris, almost obliterated by time and weather. Re- 
turned home on foot without much fatigue. 

July 26. Called for an interview with Mr. Benjamin Thomp- 
son ; he and Lord George Germaine not returned from the 
country. 

July 27. Called again on Mr. Thompson ; neither he nor 
Lord George returned. Passed two hours in Mr. Waller's front 
dining-room, to have a sight of the French spy, De la Motte, who 



1781.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 321 

was dragged on a hurdle to place of execution, Tyburn, to be 
hanged ; tall and well grown, — dress black, flapped hat. 

July 28. Went with Mr. Arthur Savage on a curiosity walk, 
to gaze at Chiswick House and gardens ; by a card (without which 
none are admitted) we found an entrance. It is a seat belonging 
to the Duke of Devonshire, but forsaken by him. It was left him 
by its former owner, the late Earl of Burlington. It is properly a 
miniature building, and in a peculiar taste ; not a room I think 
twenty feet square, many smaller. The walls are covered with 
pictures, some fine originals, principally copies ; grounds covered 
with sphinxes and urns. Walks in Chinese taste, long, straight, and 
gravelled ; cut hedges. From a terrace is a beautiful view over 
a delightfully improved country, bounded by surrounding hills, in- 
terspersed with gentlemen's seats ^ farm houses, live hedges, corn 
grounds, pastures with trees in rows, clumps and wildernesses. In 
the grounds are a few temples and porticoes. Having satisfied 
curiosity, as far as time would admit, we entered the road and be- 
gan our homeward course, and arrived at three o'clock. 

July 29. Dined at Capt. Hay's, by invitation card of yester- 
day, with Mr. Danforth, and also Mrs. Geyer, just arrived from 
New -York. 

July 30. Went to Westminster Abbey to meet Mr. Savage 
by agreement, to explain to him the meaning of mottoes under 
arms of the knights of the bath in Henry Vllth's chapel. Saw, for 
the first time, Lord Chatham's effigy in wax, having the wig, shoes, 
robes, etc., he had on when he expired in the House of Lords ; 
said to be very like him, but very unlike every cut of him that had 
before come to my view. 

July 31. Dined with Mr. Simpson and Mr. Higginson, and 
abode there till four o'clock ; returned, and Mr. Smithson drank 
tea with me. 

Aug. 1. Capt. Coombs breakfasted with me ; accompanied 
him to the Treasury, in order to put his petition, with Sir William 
Pepperell's recommendation, into Mr, Rowe's hands ; who returned 
it, advising to a further attestation of the alleged facts. Return- 
ing, we stepped into Lincoln's Inn Hall, where was sitting Lord 
Chancellor Thurlow in a case of lunacy, from whence I departed 

41 



322 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1781. 

alone and dined at home. Drank tea with Harrison Gray and wife 
at Brompton. 

Aug. 3. Called at Mr. Thompson's lodgings, in Pall Mall 
Court - disappointed — went to show Mr. Savage the grave of 
Judge Chambers Russell, in Bunhill Fields burying ground ; which 
at sixty pounds expense has but a common grave stone. Thence 
to the poor remains of a once royal palace, of which the outer gate- 
way (St. John's Gate) is now standing, and only that; the site is 
now a cowyard and stable ; so where once royalty was lodged, 
beasts inhabit. 

Jlug. 4. Again disappointed in not finding Mr. Thompson at 
his house, nor at the Treasury. 

Aug. 6. Took tea at Mr. Copley's, with Mr. R. Clarke and the 
family. 

Aug. 8. In conversation with Mr. Peters, was informed that it 
is and has been all along the determination of the cabinet to set up 
the noblemen's claim against New England charters, annihilate all 
of them, and reduce the surviving inhabitants to a state of villen- 
age, or expel them. He says he has sufficient authority to assert 
this. Cruel, barbarous determination ! May heaven disappoint their 
cursed device against innocence, justice, right, humanity, and every 
laudable principle and virtue. May America and my countrymen^ 
more dear to me than ever, be made acquainted with this more than 
brutual cruelty ; may disappointment be the issue of their attempts, 
vexation and every evil the reward of such unexampled, oppressive, 
rapacious designs, for it is but yet in embryo, never, I hope, to see 
the light, I doubt not heaven has in store ample revenge for this 
devoted country, whose rulers seem infatuated, and themselves on 
the verge of ruin thereby. 

Aug. 9. Mr. Jones, a Bostonian, drank tea with me. 

Aug. 11. After one hour's waiting, admitted to Mr. Thompson 
in the plantation office ; he seemed inclined to shorten the inter- 
view, received me with a courtier's smile, rather uncommunicative 
and dry. This reception has damped ray ill grounded hopes, de- 
rived from former seeming friendly intentions to promote my views ; 
this, my first, will be my last attempt to gain advantages from a 
courtier, of which I never entertained favorable impressions. 



1781.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 323 

Aug. 18. Took tea and passed the evening at Mr. and Mrs. 
Hay's. 

Aug. 21. Dined at Capt. Hay's, with four gentlemen. 

Aug. 24. To the Gresham lecture room to see Copley's picture 
of Lord Chatham's death. 

Sept. 4. Took tea with Dr. Jeffries, of Boston, a son of David 
Jeffries. 

TO MR. THOMAS WYER, NEW-YORK. 

London, Sept. 12, 1781. 
Dear Sir : 

Having the other day met Mr. Berry, who informed me you 
were settled in New-York with your wife, and that he would take 
charge of a letter and deliver it into your hands, I am encouraged 
to send this scrawl that serves to acknowledge the receipt of yours 
of a distant date, and thank you for it. I hope your situation is 
comfortable, though, at best, a man in the civil or commercial line 
has many reasons of complaint in a garrison of disorderly, licentious 
soldiers. I am glad to be informed that you are employed in busi- 
ness, and hope it will turn out to good account. 

It has been my wish ever since I have been from my own home, 
that all who are in a state of exile, whether voluntary or not, ex- 
cept those immediately concerned in the revenue, who could not 
have remained in America, had been prudent enough to have kept 
their political opinions to themselves, especially after the frenzy 
had worked itself up so high in the minds of our zealous patriot 
neighbors, and remained at their own dwellings, and made the best 
shifts they could in these troubles. They might, I really think, nave 
found ihemselves, for the most part, in less disagreeable circum- 
stances than they now are ; at least I can truly say it respecting 
my own particular case. But the bad consequences of past errors 
are now only to be lessened by a prudent forbearance of harsh re- 
proachful language against the present rulers in the American 
colonies that remain in subjection to Congress authority ; for what- 
ever you warm transatlantic loyalists may think, it is probable, 
however the general war may terminate, there never will be estab- 
lished such a degree of British governmental authority in North 
America as will cause much matter of triumph to American 



324 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1781. 

refugees. I wish America would dissolve the execrable French al- 
liance, that they have sufficient reasons already to detest, and which 
will, if continued much longer, issue in greater ruin. 

We are now hemmed in by the combined fleets of France and 
Spain, to the number of forty-nine capital ships, and eleven frigates, 
which have been cruising for some time in the chops of the English 
Channel. Ours, under Admiral Derby, is at present in Torbay. A 
large East and West India fleet is hourly expected under a slender 
convoy ; but government has taken the precaution to send out 
some fast sailing cutters to apprise them of the danger. 
Wishing you success and safety, 

I am your friend, 

S. CURWEN. 

Sept. 27. Accompanied Messrs. Savage and Toulmin to Drury 
Lane, to see " School for Scandal," which was highly entertaining. 
On the appearance of Mrs. Cargill, appointed to one of the parts, 
a general hiss, followed by an unusual clap of approbation, for 
some minutes kept on to discountenance the hiss, occasioned by her 
whimsical caprices and rude disappointment of the public at Hay- 
market Theatre about two months since. She is a pleasing per- 
former and public favorite. 

Oct. 2. Took tea and passed the evening at Mr. John Savage's 
with Mr. A. Savage, except a walk to Chelsea Hospital. 

Oct. 9. Papers say Adam Woolridge is appointed American 
secretary's deputy, in lieu of Mr. Fisher, who now holds the office. 
Mr. A. Savage dined and passed the evening with me. 

Oct. 15. Went over to Chelsea ; met Mr. Benjamin Hal- 
lowell there. Another countryman. Commodore Loring, discharged 
from pension list by death, and another going same way ; Brigadier 
Royall seized with small-pox, with hazardous symptoms. Capt. 
Coombs dined with me. 

Oct. 18. Thirteen criminals executed at Tyburn — a melan- 
choly consideration that robberies have of late greatly increased, 
as indeed has thieving of all kinds in the metropolis. 

Oct. 20. Mr. Arthur Savage, and Miss S,, and Mr. John Sav- 
age, lady and son, drank tea with me. By the papers I find some 
Salem privateers have fallen into the hands of the British. 
Oct. 30. Dined with Mr. and Mrs. Hay. 



1781.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 325 

TO SAMUEL SEWALL, ESa, SIDMOUTH. 

London, Oct. 30, 1781. 
Dear Sir : 

Inclosed is a bank post bill for j£24 6^. 8d., the balance of 
your quarterly pension of jC25 ; and while I reside in London will, 
with great readiness, serve you or any acquaintance in this or any 
way in my power. 

You wish me to write you favorable news from America ; 
■would to God such was to be found written in the book of fate. 

Respecting the state of the war in that quarter : the French, 
you know, are in possession of the Chesapeake, with a much supe- 
rior fleet to that of Great Britain ; for they reckon thirty-six capital 
ships to our twenty-four, even after Digby's junction. General 
Cornwallis's royal master is in the utmost distress for him, whom all 
the world here fears to hear wall have been Burgoyned, and there- 
fore an end to this cursed, ill-omened quarrel, though not in a way 
they wish ; for which the instigators and continuers deserve exe- 
cration. It is, however, reported that twenty thousand men are 
to be shipped off to America in February, part of whom are the 
five thousand before destined to the East Indies. 

I am yours, 

S. CURWEN. 

JVov. 20. Letters from New-York inform us that New London, 
in Connecticut, is burnt, with all the shipping, by six hundred 
American Associators, so called, leagued in a band of destruction 
against their native country : together with the loss of lives and 
properties of the inhabitants, the assailants left of their number 
two hundred dead on the spot; their death the just punishment due 
to such parricides. 

By the king's speech I find he intends, if parliament will fur- 
nish men and money, to continue his efforts to reduce his rebellious 
subjects in America to his royal will and pleasure, and his other 
enemies to his own terms, if he can ; and no doubt they will con- 
tinue to furnish both as long as they last, and until they shall fairly 
and completely have dried up all the sources, which, perhaps, a few 
more expensive, unsuccessful campaigns will effectually accomplish. 
Would that this nation or its rulers were wise enough to sit down 



326 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1781. 

by its present losses, and make the best of what remains. Com- 
merce and conquest are two things in nature very unhke, and re- 
quire very different geniuses in carrying on ; and which is most 
congenial and natural to these islanders is obvious. 

JVbv. 22. The wind continues westerly, detaining Admiral 
Rodney's fleet of eight ships of the line in Torbay, bound for the 
West Indies. The court and all apprehend some great blow there, 
as they have reason from the great superiority of the French fleet 
gone from Charleston since Cornwallis's surrender oil the 19th ult., 
of himself, officers, array, baggage, artillery, ammunition, de guerre 
and de bouche, to the American General George Washington, of 
whom some of the loise men of this country speak with undeserved 
contempt. This being the second instance that has happened to the 
best forces of this continent, and perhaps the first of the kind that 
ever befell this haughty America-despising people. And the 
flight of two English admirals, with a frequently declared superior 
fleet, Graves and Digby, (under the auspicious eye of one of the 
royal offspring, Prince William Henry, who is training up, and I 
hope will prove an ornament and a useful naval commander,) to 
New-York with Clinton and his garrison of cooped-up troops, who 
for a few weeks having breathed free air, are now chiefly return- 
ing back to their winter amusements and useful employment of dan- 
cing, card-playing, acting farces on mock stages, and decorating 
their pretty persons for the astonishment and delight of their female 
admirers. 

Adieu to the character which once justly enough distinguished 
the army and navy of this little empire ! 

J^ov. 23. Overtaken in the Park by a former travelling com- 
panion, named Aspdin, of Philadelphia, on horseback j he recog- 
nised me after an interval of four years. 

TO MR. ANDREW DALGLISH, GLASGOW. 

London, Kov. 25, 1781. 

Dear Sir : 

London, as you justly observe, to a pushing man and of abili- 
ties is the place to gain great advantages, if he knows the world 
and how to avail himself of lucky incidents, and is attentive to 
them; but to one of a contrary character it is far otherwise. 



1781.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 327 

Your request of my service need not be twice asked, if I know how 
to perform any thing essential for you, or any friend ; but being 
placed by Providence out of the reach of rendering services, I am 
endeavoring to reason myself into the belief that I stand in need of 
none myself, though possessing very little more than the necessa- 
ries of life ; 'tis a hard task, though if attended with success, shall 
not grudge my pains. Our townsman, Mr. Fisher, holds a quar- 
tered, precarious office, at I fancy less than half its real income, 
in, under, and returnable to Mr. Thompson, when he shall come 
back, which I doubt not will be in the spring or summer following. 
Clerkships, as all offices under government, are at open mar- 
ket, and bought and sold as public stocks, the premium four, five, 
or six years' income. The Treasury Coffee-house, under the 
arches, is the place where the sellers or brokers are to be seen at 
business hours. If you have any connections that can recommend 
you to men of influence, and can really engage their interest, (for 
promises are the courtier's traffick, and mean nothing; people of 
breeding are too polite to disoblige in any other way but by neg- 
lect,) you may succeed ; without, it will be vain to attempt. Merit 
is disregarded, implying a demand. Here it is not asked what you 
have done, but what you are capable of doing, is worth attending 
to. In whatever line you direct your views, I sincerely wish suc- 
cess ; you might assuredly depend on my aid if it could or can be 
of any use to you. 

With real and hearty good will, 

I am your friend, 

S. CURWEN. 

Jfov. 26. Going through the Park, I found great numbers 
there waiting for the king's passing to the parliament house, being 
first day of session, when it is opened by a speech from the throne ; 
the king in his robes, crown on his head, which, if capable of feel- 
ing, must I think feel more distress than at any time since his brows 
bore this emblem of royalty. The total overthrow in Lord Corn- 
wallis's defeat, of his long projected and self-promised subjugation 
of North America to an uncontrolled power, must have this effect. 
Man's designs are often overruled by a more powerful authority. 
Took tea at Mr. John Savage's, according to promise, with a room 
full of company. 



# 



328 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1781. 

Jfov. 30. Took my watch to London to be reformed, it proving 
a useless companion in its present state of false intelligence j bor- 
rowed one in the interim. 

Bee. 5. Mr. Thomas Hutchinson and Mr. A. Savage took tea 
with me. 

TO REV. ISAAC SMITH, SIDMOUTH. 

Brompton, Dec. 15, 1781. 

Dear Sir : 

I delayed answering your last favor till I could send a satisfac- 
tory one to your question aboutyour friend,Thomas Barnard, Esq., of 
Lincoln's Inn ; and now I have the pleasure to acquaint you that 
he and I were this day as usual fellow-worshippers at Essex House 
chapel, which seems to be his Sunday's resort, both for worship and 
the communion, at which he attends with becoming devotion. 
Our preacher to-day was Mr. Estin, of Lewinsmead, Bristol, for 
Mr. Lindsay himself always performs the liturgy service. 

Since Lord Cornwallis's surrender, government, I am told, has 
laid aside all other thoughts than to maintain, if practicable, Caro- 
lina, Nova Scotia, New-York city, Charleston, and Georgia ; per- 
haps since the majority for carrying on the war in America, when 
the House of Commons consisted of more than four hundred, fell to 
forty-one only ; a proof, notwithstanding the irresistible influence 
of court, of the real sentiments of the landed interest. For the 
aforesaid purpose immense quantities of army and navy ammunitions, 
de guerre and de hotiche, will be sent over, and primarily furnish 
America, and ultimately, I fear, France, with the ability to dis- 
possess Great Britain of every foot of ground on the continent of 
North America ; and it will be well if not the islands too. But 
whoever is master of the ocean will doubtless command these ; 
whether Great Britain is or is not at present, is a fact easily to be 
judged of 5 whether she will be in time to come, must be read in 
a following page in the book of fate. 'Tis, I confess, foolish to an- 
ticipate evils ; a wise man said, 

" If evils come not, then our fears are vain ; 
And if they do, fear but augments the pain." 

No mind is so fortified as not to feel concern for what may 



1781.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 329 

happen, especially when smarting under the rod, nor insensible 
when oppressed. 

Very truly yours, 

S. CURWEN. 

Dec. 20. Went to London in order to pass a day at Capt. 
Hay's ; he was departed to Portsmouth to meet his ship there. 

Dec. 23. Sunday at Essex House chapel. Mr. Lindsay preached 
an admirable dissuasive against placing terms of acceptance with 
God on narrow party principles, as if he was engaged to support 
Calvin, Arminius, or the Council of Nice, or any body of patriarchs, 
archbishops or bishops whatever. 

Dec. 31. Three days since was my birth-day, when I entered 
my sixty-sixth year. What reason have I to lament the loss of 
time and waste of powers that our indulgent Creator has bestowed 
upon us for wise and useful purposes. 

Henry Laurens, Esq., late president of Congress, w-as admitted 
to bail and discharged from the Tower. 



42 



330 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1782. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

Brompton, London, January 1, 1782. Dined at Mr. John Sa- 
vage's, in the Grove. 

Jan. 3. Called on Dr. Jeffries, a countryman of mine, at No. 
28 South Moulton-street. In my absence, Mr. Timmins and James 
Russell called. 

TO SAMUEL SEWALL, ESQ., TAUNTON. 

London, Jan. 8, 1782. 
Dear Sir : 

Mr. Rowe names the 21st for delivering out his orders to the 
hank for payment of our quarterly stipends. I shall be on the 
watch, and avail myself of the earliest day for myself and you. 

I presume you have heard of the death of poor Abel Willard, 
your late friend, whose continuance on the London stage was of a 
few days only after his return from Oxford. He is now gone 
to that retreat from suffering, where the wncked cease from trou- 
bling, and the weary are at rest. I am told the surviving mate is 
a mourner in earnest. 

I wish you the compliments of the season, and am glad to hear 
from you, that you are enjoying the pleasures of cheerful mirth and 
conviviality ; may they continue up to your desires, which I pre- 
sume are ever confined within the bounds of temperance ; and 
hope a full restoration of your health and spirits. Happy those 
who can amuse or gladden their hearts with anticipation of future 
good. The present prospect is too gloomy for my weak mind to 
discover one gleam of hope. 

Your faithful friend, 

S. Cur WEN. 

Jan. 10. Received a letter to convey to the widow Poynton, 
at Salem, from her late husband's kinsman of same name, in Orange- 
court, Leicester-fields, with a complaisant invitation to dine with 
him next Sunday. 



1782.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 331 

TO SAMUEL SEWALL, ESQ., TAUNTON. 

Yeoman's Row, Jan. 24, 1782. 
Dear Sir : 

I have the pleasure to inclose you a bank post-bill for <£24 6s. 8d.j 
wishing it safe to your hands. 

I am not happy enough to present you with any good news of 
our own selves or our public concerns, unless you will say none is 
such, at a time when bad only may reasonably be expected from 
almost all quarters of the globe. And though I would not raise 
imaginary ideal terrors in the breast of any of my acquaintance, I 
cannot forbear to mention a piece of inteUigence received from an 
acquaintance here, communicated to him by a lady, who, he says, 
has intimate cabinet-council connections. He says, she has in times 
past more than once or twice informed him of secret deliberations 
and resolves done and acted there, that at the time surprised him, 
and were afterwards verified by the events. She told this in con- 
fidence, with great apparent concern of mind, etc., seeming firm in 
belief, and fear of its being put into execution within a few months. 
Hear then your doom : — it has been a subject of deliberation, and 
is thought to be determined in the cabinet, to withdraw from the 
American refugees in England all government support. So shame- 
less and unexampled an act of barbarity, you probably may think, 
cannot be perpetrated in a civilized state ; perhaps not. Politics 
and morals, however, are founded on very different grounds, and 
conducted by principles of a quite contrary complexion from each 
other. * What is heterodoxy, base and unjustifiable in the one sys- 
tem, may be in the other sound state orthodoxy, and free from 
reproach ; viewed in the single light of supposed good of the state. 
One cannot, therefore, tell what the administrators of public affairs 
may think it politically prudent to do in the paroxysms of public 
distress ; and their ways and means are unhappily in one at this 
very time. I would fain disbelieve, but confess my fears step in 
between apprehensions on one side, and doubt on the other, and 
cast up the balance on the side of the latter. This day, I questioned 
Mr. Rowe at the Treasury on the subject ; and he, with the apathy 

of a stoic, and the composed countenance of a , coldly 

replied, he had not heard of it. No, answered I, and I trust you 



332 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1782. 

never will. The nonchalance of his behavior rather increased my 
alarm than silenced my doubts. If you think it worth while to 
make inquiries about it, perhaps some friend who has connections 
with the court may convince you of its truth or falsity, — or, per- 
haps, you will prefer to postpone a knowledge of evils till they 
arrive, thinking that sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. 

Yours truly, 

S. CURWEN. 

TO JUDGE SEWALL, BRISTOL. 

JVo. 1, Yeoman's Row, Bromptonj Feb. 4, 1782. 
Dear Sir : 

After so long a silence, I fancy you will wonder at this time 
to hear from me, and I confess I should hardly have thought of 
troubling you, but for a selfish purpose. I am directed by a son 
of Esculapius to heighten my diet by a moderate use of the most 
nutritive food, best dry wines, and spirits diluted in water, etc., ex- 
cluding sweets, sours, and high seasonings, — in order to animate, 
warm, and invigorate, as far as possible, an old, cold and enfeebled 
body. Please inform me the proportions of spirits, milk, etc., of 
the mixture that was recommended to you by a London physician 
of note, to be taken by one in a decaying weak habit. 

I durst not touch on the state of the nation, nor of our parti- 
cular concerns as refugees, both of which, I presume, you suspect 
to be in a very unpromising condition. 

I beheve you will wonder how I came to the place from "whence 
I date ; my situation is, luckily, for the time I proposed to abide 
here, happy, from a coincidence of circumstances which could not 
be foreseen. Your friend, 

S. CuRWEN. 

Feb. 7. At the queen's house with Mr. Hopkins to see the 
plate, etc. ; the first object that struck me was three large maund 
baskets covered of table plate, as dishes, tureens, butter and sauce 
boats, all with covers, raised, embossed and engraved. The king's 
service was silver gilt ; the prince's, silver. We also were con- 
ducted to the kitchen, where wxre eighteen male cooks busily 
employed in their several various lines; the men in white jackets 



1782.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 333 

and caps, and the "women in white aprons and caps. By a late 
royal order, no one is to appear in the kitchen with their natural 
hair. When the king arrives from court at St. James's, (where 
he attends five days in the week, Tuesdays and Saturdays being 
the only ones he has in the week for his own private amusements, 
concerns, etc.,) dinner is called, on which a bustle ensues ; the 
assistants of the silver scullery take such pieces as called for out of 
baskets, place them on a warm stove, whence they are taken by 
the cook and filled and taken to dining-room door, and delivered 
to the person appointed to place them on the royal table. Com- 
mon dinner, five dishes of meat, four of garden stuffs, and one 
remove daily, and no more. He is exceedingly temperate, drinks 
generally water, and rarely partakes of more than one or two 
dishes. His supper is w^ater-gruel, taken in a vessel peculiarly appro- 
priated to his use, called the king's cup, and is of silver gilt, — shown 
me by the yeoman. The king's company at table is the queen, prince 
of Wales, (unless on his public dinner days,) the princess royal, 
princesses Sophia and Elizabeth : the rest of the children at an- 
other table in another apartment. The prince's dinner served up 
by his proper officers in the same manner as the king's. The 
queen, unless indisposed, always attends court and levee days ; as 
soon as it is over she returns ; immediately dinner is served up 
without w^aiting for her husband ', a proof of good husbandship. 
It is said every king has a service of new table plate, the old being 
disposed of; the silver is kept in bags and put into presses. I took 
leave, and by advice returned by Buckingham Gate, Pimlico, 
Grosvenor-place, in preference to Constitution Hill, which some- 
times is hazardous, and at eight o'clock got safe home. 

FROM CHIEF JUSTICE OLIVER. 

Birmingham, Feb. 9, 1782. 
Dear Sir: 

Your favor of the 4th inst. informs me of two canisters of snuff 
which you have for me. I am much obliged to you for your care 
and trouble for an irritating powder for an American refugee, and 
doubt not that it will be of a more agreeable nature than the so 
many irritables we have all turned up our noses at for five or six 
years past. If you will be so kind as to send it to the Birmingham 



334 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1782. 

coach at the Gree7i Man and Still, in Oxford-street, directed to me, 
I shall be glad ; and it you will call upon Mr. Thos. Hutchinson,* 
he will pay you for me. 

I am sincerely glad of the safe arrival of our friend Governor 
Browne ;f I wish him an easy cushion for his chair, but I fear a 
barking crew of rebels will disrest him. Your friend Mr. Lakin 
inquires after you when I meet him. 

Health and ease attend you ; so wisheth 

Your humble servant, 

Peter Oliver. 
Samuel Curwen, Esq. 

Feb. 15. Mr. Thomas Hutchinson called and passed an hour 

with me. 

Feb. 17. The secret service list for the year 1781 is positively 

charged with the following sums : — 

American departments exclusive of Refugees .£83,000 sterl'g. 

Admiralty 46,000 

War Office 10,500 

Secretary of State 53,600 

Treasury 72,000 



.£265,100 
The request long urged by General Burgoyne, of having a 
court martial appointed to decide upon his conduct in the affair of 
Saratoga, has at last been complied with, and orders transmitted 
from the war-office to the commander-in-chief in America for 
sending over such officers as mentioned by the General as neces- 
sary for his defence, by the first conveyance, to attend the trial. 
If no unexpected impediment takes place, it will be held in the 
spring. The administration seems loth to have an inquiry made ; 
perhaps it will produce an exposure of orders, etc., judged not 
prudent at present for the public eye. 

Feb. 20. Bishop Lowth of London, and Bishop Newton of 
Bristol, both died on the 14th inst. 

Feb. 26. Walked to Chelsea with Mr. Dalglish, who returned 
and dined with me. Miss Savage and father joined us at tea. 

* Governor Hutchinson's son. 

t William Browne, of Salem, afterwards governor of Bermudas. 



1782.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 335 

March 1. The Welsh procession from St. Andrew's church, 
Holborn, to the Crown and Anchor tavern in the Strand to dine ; 
the members, and all of that nation adorned with leeks and orna- 
ments resembling them, stuck on the button-band of their hats, as 
is usual on this day, called in the Roman calendar St. David's 
Day ; still continued in his honor, who is the titular saint of the 
nation. This society is established for the support of the poor, for 
which they have a fund, schools, etc. 

March 2. Wrote several letters to be sent home by a Mr. 
Sigourney. 

TO DR. E. A. HOLYOKE. 

London, March 2, 1782. 
Dear Sir : 

Since my tedious answer to your only favor, I have frequently 
thought of a mistaken notion asserted therein, which I naturally 
fell into for want of making proper inquiry and receiving informa- 
tion, arising from the vulgar prevailing notion in the province of 
Massachusetts Bay, that our soil was peculiarly unfavorable to the 
raising of wheat, which made me look upon the success of the Si- 
berian as almost miraculous. A little while after I had sent off my 
answer, I happened to fall into a conversation with a curious sen- 
sible gentleman, who from repeated trials had proved the falsehood 
of our vulgar notions, and had raised frequent large harvests of 
excellent w^heat from his own grounds, even from soils naturally 
weak and indifferent. I am therefore convinced he justly derived 
cur people's pertinacious adherence to their own bad and wrong 
tillage from a mere obstinate and lazy attachment to old customs, 
handed down from father to son, and preferred in spite of yearly 
disappointments from generation to generation. 

Your real friend and well wisher, 

S. CURWEN. 

March 2. Lord George Germaine, who was admitted into the 
administration on the idea of subjugating N. America to the un- 
conditional authority of Parliament, having since Lord Cornwallis's 
surrender of himself and the whole army to the victorious arms of 



336 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1782. 

France and Congress, abdicated his post of secretary in the Ameri- 
can department, left the House of Commons, and gone up to the 
House of Lords by a patent of nobihty. General Carleton, who is 
confessedly of superior ability in point of military knowledge and 
execution, is now appointed general-in-chief in America, when all 
manoeuvres in his line are intentionally given up, and no opportunity 
is afforded for exertion, except in the way the former generals, his 
predecessors, have figured in amassing personal wealth out of this 
already cruelly oppressed people. Lord George Germaine's ad- 
mission to the upper house was accompanied by many severe re- 
flections and motions to address the king to prevent it ; many lords 
thinking it disgraceful to suffer tamely one to be added to their 
number who stood disgraced by the sentence of a court martial, 
and was forbidden the society of any of the officers of the army. 
The Marquis of Caermarthen made the motion, and Lord Shelburne 
warmly seconded it. Many speeches on the occasion. Last 
Wednesday, General Conway concluded a long speech in the 
Commons with the following motion, viz. : Resolved, " That it is 
the opinion of this house, that a further continuance of an offensive 
war in America for the purpose of subduing by force the revolted 
colonies is totally impracticable, inasmuch as it weakens that force 
which we ought to employ against our European enemies, and is 
contrary to his majesty's declaration, who, in his gracious speech 
from the throne, expresses a wish to restore peace and tranquillity." 
This motion the ministerial party endeavored to dispose of by the 
attorney general's motion for an adjournment, when at half past 
one o'clock the house divided, and to the discomfiture of his 
majesty's ministers they were in a minority by nineteen. General 
Conway then moved that an address be presented to his majesty 
on the above resolution. This was seconded by Lord Althorpe, 
and carried without a division ; the minister not daring to risk a 
second defeat. In consequence of this important decision, the nation 
is at last within the prospect of enjoying the blessings of a peace 
with America. 

Lord Stormont wrote to the lord mayor and aldermen to pre- 
vent, if possible, illuminations in the city ', none were exhibited 
but in the gallery on the top of the monument, which blazed with 
more than sixscore lamps. As soon as the joyful tidings of the 



1782.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 337 

minister's defeat and the nation's deliverance was announced in the 
lobby and avenues of the house to the numerous multitudes that 
waited in anxiety and perturbation to know the fate of their 
country, the most vehement and heartfelt shouts of acclamation 
pierced the ear, if it did not reach the heart of the minister, now 
tottering on the treasury bench. Those noble and distinguished 
characters, who by their steady perseverance and zeal had over- 
come the ruinous system of ministers, were hailed by the grave 
multitude as the saviours of their country. Expresses were des- 
patched by the ambassadors to their several courts, announcing 
this important decision, which naturally changes the system by 
Avhich the peace of Europe is disturbed. The king's answer to 
the address of the Commons in consequence of General Conway's 
motion for putting an end to the present war with America, con- 
tained the following: "There are no objects more near to my 
heart than the ease, happiness and welfare of my people ; and you 
may be assured, that in pursuance of your advice, I shall take such 
measures as shall appear to me most conducive to the restoration 
of harmony between Great Britain and the revolted colonies, so 
essential to the prosperity of both, and that my efforts shall be di- 
rected in the most effectual manner against our European enemies, 
until such peace can be obtained as shall consist with the interest 
and permanent welfare of my kingdom." 

March 4. Advice of the surrender of Minorca to the combined 
armies of France and Spain, by Gen. Murray; of the capture of 
St. Kitt's by the French, to which fate Nevis and Montserrat will 
probably soon submit. Essequibo and Demarara, taken by Rodney 
and Vaughan, are retaken by a French squadron, and it will be 
great good fortune if one single West India island be left to this 
wretched, devoted country. 

March 7. The large banking house of Brown and Collinson, 
Lombard-street, was declared bankrupt to-day, and carries with it 
a train of ruin. They were of the society of Quakers, and therefore 
more unexpected, as people of that persuasion are generally pru- 
dent, and not engaged in expensive luxurious modes of life. 

March 10. A gentleman lately from Brest acquaints Lord 
Sandwich that a piece of bad news had arrived there from the 
West Indies, which renders somewhat probable the report of a 

43 



338 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1782. 

master just arrived, that St. Kitt's was retaken by Admiral Sir 
Samuel Hood, who hearing of de Grasse's departure, immediately 
sailed and obliged the French troops to the number of six thousand 
to surrender. They had not forced the English lines at Brimstone 
Hill, and were left exposed without a single ship to aid them. De 
Grasse, thinking himself sure of the conquest, after safely landing 
these, had left them to their chance, and went in quest of other ad- 
ventures ; probably to assist in retaking St. Lucia. May it prove 
true. 

March 12. I find myself for some time laboring under distress- 
ing symptoms, which I have reason to believe my nature too feeble 
to withstand, and which must soon give way to and yield in the 
struggle. May I retire where undue passion, ungoverned appetite, 
and selfish regards shall have no rule or sway, and all shall be 
peace, harmony, mutual regards, and no intemperate gratifications. 

March 18. This day advice is come from Ireland of the most 
serious nature; a large quantity of artillery is arrived there from 
France, under the pretext of securing the island from foreign inva- 
sion ; but from the known general prevailing wish among the peo- 
ple, there is some reason to fear a general revolt from this govern- 
ment, and an independency thereon. Should it take place, wo 
betide this falling; nation. 

March 20. On the Earl of Surry's rising in the House of 
Commons to make his motion about removing ministers. Lord North 
arose, and after some altercation about the propriety of his standing 
up at the same time with the member, on his explaining his motives 
he was allowed to proceed, when he announced his (and the rest 
of the king's servants') quitting the administration, and moved for 
an adjournment till next Monday, by which time the business now 
in hand would be finished, and a new arrangement of ministers 
settled, not one of the old ones to remain in office. A greediness 
to share in the public plunder is, I fear, the primum mobile, nor 
shall we, it is greatly to be apprehended, gain much advantage by 
a new set, unless they shall totally change the system, form alli- 
ances, (for not one at present have we,) if that shall be practicable, 
put an end to the American dispute, and concihate some of our 
victorious foes. 

On this occasion Lord Surrey happened to espy Arnold, the 



1782.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 339 

American seceding general, in the house, sent him a message to 
depart, threatening, in case of refusal, to move for breaking up the 
gallery; to which the general answered, that he was introduced 
thereby a member; to which Lord Surrey replied, he might under 
that condition stay, if he would pro mine never to enter it again, with 
which General Arnold complied. This is the second instance of 
pupHc disrespect he has met with : the king having been forced to 
engage his royal word not to employ or pension him ; a just reward 
for treachery, which is ever odious. 

March 26. The town full of talk about the new ministry ; I 
doubt their success in settling with America : that poor continent 
is too much in the power of France to effect a reconciliation on 
any terms but such as the haughty court of Versailles shall approve 
of; and they, I dare say, will be humiliating enough to this in- 
fatuated country : which term, all the world will soon see, may 
with equal pfopriety be applied to English America. 

March 27. Dined at Mrs. Snelson's on Ludgate-hill ; passed 
an hour at the coffee-house before dinner, reading the newspapers 
containing the following list of the expected new ministry, which 
is a total change, there being, (as expressed,) " not a hoof left of 
the old." Lord North and his compeers are obliged, from a minority 
in some questions, and a slender decreasing majority in others, to 
surrender their posts to the opposition; who come into play on 
principles professedly opposite to the late schemes of the cabinet 
respecting America, and the war consequent thereon : — 

Marquis of Rockingham, First Lord of the Treasury. 

Lord John Cavendish, Chancellor of the Exchequer. 

Lord Camden, President of the Council. 

Duke of Grafton, Lord Privy Seal. 

Duke of Richmond, Master of Ordnance. 

Secretary for Southern Department, Lord Shelburne. 
Do. Northern do. Charles J. Fox. 

Mr. Dunning, Attorney-General, with promise of being enno- 
bled, seals first vacancy. 

Mr. Lee, Solicitor-General. 

Admiral Keppell, First Lord of the Admiralty. 

General Conway, Commander in Chief of Forces. 

Lord Howe, do. of Fleet. 



340 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1782. 

Duke of Rutland, Master of the Horse. 

Mr. Barre, or Mr. Thomas Townsend, Secretary at War. 

Mr. Burke, Secretary to the First Lord of the Treasury, also 
Receiver and Paymaster-General. 

Remaining Lords of the Treasury,- Lord John Cavendish, Lord 
Althorp, John Spencer, James Greville, and Frederick Montague, 
Esqrs. 

In order to keep in the present administration, the cabinet had 
come to a full determination to propose a dissolution of Parliament 
to the council ; which being proposed, was at length agreed to as 
the only expedient to save their honor and support the present 
measures ; the usual ministerial majority in the House of Commons 
being every day visibly lessened. But the chancellor. Lord Thur- 
low, with a fortitude and magnanimity peculiar to himself, and 
worthy of the highest praise, withdrew and refused to affix the 
seals, whereby this junto scheme is totally overset ; nor dare the 
king nor his ministers discover any resentment at their disappoint- 
ment. It is thought very serious consequences would have fol- 
lowed, and public royal disapprobation. Thank God that there 
yet remain any instances of virtue and regard to public safety 
amidst our deplorable situation, mercenary views, incredible dissi- 
pation, (wherein all ranks are involved,) profligacy and effeminacy 
of manners, and the open unrestrained practices of genteel vice 
and disregard of religion. 

March 28, Visited Mr. Timmins for two hours ; he returned 
with me. That the Prince of Wales is not content to take all upon 
trust, the following story perhaps will illustrate : — Returning lately 
from an airing on horseback, attended by a companion and one 
servant, on his arrival in St. James's Park, he alighted, and giving 
his horse to the servant, proceeded on foot with his friend to ihe 
gallery of the House of Commons, where he abode for some hours. 
Whilst there, having entered with his hat on, he was ordered to 
take it off, with which he complied, keeping his handkerchief up 
to his face to prevent the discovery of his person. Having heard 
many things before unknown to him, he departed, surprised and 
informed. This excursion continued so long as to delay the royal 
dinner for more than an hour, and occasioned an anxiety in his 
royal parents' breasts ; his absence at meals being unusual. On 



1782.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 341 

his entering, being questioned, he frankly owned where he had 
been, not a little to the disapprobation of his father; who has since 
complied with his request to allow him a summer's progress through 
the kingdom, which he has often solicited, in case he would pro- 
mise to make no more such elopements. It is a maxim of state for 
the present incumbent of the throne to keep the successor ignorant 
as possible, and totally unconcerned and unused to court measures 
and all public concerns, and this king seems inclined to put the 
maxim in practice to its extent. 

March 29. Good Friday ; attended worship at Whitehall 
chapel. Lord North present. Being disappointed in Westminster 
Abbey and St. Margaret's church, (at the former by the lowness 
of the reader's voice, at the latter by the service not having begun,) 
proceeding cityward, just as I came to the gate leading from Par- 
liament-street to Scotland-yard, or Whitehall, who should cross 
me but a large clumsy gentleman with a blue ribbon across his 
breast, who, on inquiry, I found was Lord North. Following him 
into Whitehall chapel, I remained during the service. He is rather 
above the common height, and bulk greatly exceeding ; large legs, 
walks heavily, manner clumsy; very large featured, thick lips, 
wide mouth, high forehead, large nose, eyes not lively ; head well 
covered with hair, which he wears high before. The preacher 
was Dr. Noel, dean of Salisbury, the only Episcopal preacher that 
Lever saw or heard repeat the Lord's prayer by heart ; not one of 
them daring to trust to their memory except this man. His manner 
and delivery very agreeable, and his discourse excellent and useful. 
Dined at Salisbury-court ; met Mr. Dalglish, who accompanied me 
home to tea and passed evening. 

March 30. Mr. Dalglish called, and we went together to the 
Bishop of London's terrace-walk on the banks of the Thames at 
Fulham, and returned by Little Chelsea. 

March 31. Attended public worship at St. Paul's; Mr. Hys- 
lop preached. Drank tea with Mr. Peters. He informed me 
administration would not consent to the independence of America ; 
the ministerial plan is to govern America by a lord-lieutenant, and 
create nobility ; and if she will not agree to Great Britain's pro- 
posal, to make a partition treaty of the colonies with France, to 
whom the northern colonies and Canada would be ceded, the 



342 JOURNAL AND LETTERS- [1782. 

southern colonies remaining to Great Britain, — a fine bargain, 
truly. 

Jipril 4. Mr. Dalglish called at ten o'clock, and we departed 
on foot to Hampton Court, passing through Chelsea, part of Ham- 
mersmith to Fulham, crossed the river just above Putney bridge, 
passed through that town, and to Bornes Mortlake to back of Kew ; 
from thence to Richmond, crossing the river at the bridge, pro- 
ceeded through Twickenham to Hampton, passing Bushy Park, a 
tedious level of more than a mile in length, arrived at King's Arms 
inn at two o'clock, where we dined. At four o'clock proceeded 
to the palace ; entered with a large company of females, who 
arrived there at the same time with us, joining a master with a 
number of young persons, his pupils, and a governess with a score 
of young misses, rendering our company through the royal apart- 
ments very numerous. The rooms almost all hung in rich tapestry 
of Brussels manufacture, wrought in gold and silver, which, being 
put up in King WilUam's reign, time has somewhat tarnished. 
Pity that the room built for the reception of the Cartoons, and 
which they long adorned, is now by this king's whim robbed of 
them to cover the staircase walls of Buckingham House. Return- 
ing we arrived at " King's Arms" inn, on the borders of Kew 
Green, and at the foot of the bridge leading to Brentford at eight 
o'clock, where we suj)ped and lodged. 

Afril 5. We walked on Bankside terrace as far as Sion House, 
meaning opposite thereto. Returning we passed the building, and 
taking the foot-path by the river, kept it through Chiswick and 
Hammersmith as far as it was continued, affording most agreeable 
views ; then turning, crossed the country to Fulham and by little 
Chelsea, arriving at Don Saltero's cafe on the bank of the river, 
where we dined, and at four o'clock departed, arriving at my lodg- 
ino-s at five o'clock, having in two days walked thirty-two miles, 
(yesterday twenty-one, and eleven to-day,) and am at this present 
writino- no more fatigued nor less able to take another walk to- 
morrow of the same length. 

Ji])ril 6. Capt. Coombs and Mr. Dalglish drank tea with me. 

April 7, Sunday. Attended worship and communion at Es- 
sex House chapel ; Mr. Lindsay read the service and oflficiated at 
the communion. Dr. Priestley preached an excellent discourse. 



1782.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 343 

TO SAMUEL SEWALL, ESQ., SIDMOUTH. 

Brompton, Mpril 8, 1782. 
Dear Sir : 

I fancy you need not give yourself any concern about future 
supplies, which my last letter intimated. Government, it is proba- 
ble, will not be guilty of such injustice as to withhold what the 
public faith has engaged. Some ill-founded grants will be stopped, 
and here the reform in this will end. 

Truly your friend, 

S. CURWEN. 

Jipril 8. Removed my lodgings from Yeoman's Row to Mrs. 
Sraithson's, near the chapel, Brompton. 

^pril 15. News from East Indies that our Admiral Hughes 
had taken three places from the Dutch on the coast of Malabar. 
Further accounts of the designed reform by new administration in 
national expenditures and abolition of all needless sinecure estab- 
lishments — wish it may prove true and of lasting advantage. 

Jipril 18. The delegates of the associated counties held their 
first meeting in the new common council chamber at Guildhall. 
During the late administration they were refused it with some 
marks of contemptuous disapprobation. New men and new meas- 
ures have effected a wonderful change in the common council of 
London. 

Mpril 19. This day seven years the fatal fight at Lexington, 
Mass., happened ; productive of such baneful consequences to 
Great Britain and America ; what will be its issue, is known only 
to Him who overrules the folly and wickedness of man, to serve his 
own wise purposes ; may all of them who are so deeply interested 
therein be prepared for it. 

^pril 20. It is affirmed that the cabinet, which consists of ten 
members, have been thrice equally divided; the lord president in 
that case makes report to the king, and he agrees with one opin- 
ion, which is then entered in the council books, with this addition, 
" by command of his majesty." The king refused to give his opin- 
ion, saying, " Let it be done as they determine among themselves. ^^ 
" But, sire, they are divided." " So let it remain then .'" — A strong 



344 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1782. 

ground of suspicion that neither measures nor men are to his 
liking. 

" The king in a pet, his affairs all deranged, 
Has at last his unmerciful ministers changed ; 
Brave news, quoth the Congress ; but better would be, 
Had the king when he changed them omitted the C." 

Ji'pril 24. Admiral Barrington has sent into Portsmouth four 
French transports from Brest and a large ship armed enfiute, and 
was left chasing four men-of-war near the harbor. 

April 25. Admiral Barrington arrived in harbor with ten 
ships of the line and nine transports — French prizes, intended for 
the East Indies, with another French ship of sixty-four guns armed 
en flute. 

May 2. To Westminster Hall ; sat an hour in chancery court, 
heard lord chancellor try three causes; method summary. 

May 9. To Chelsea — took tea with Mrs. Tiramins — Robert 
Hallowell first acquainted me with CJark Pickman's death. 

TO RICHARD WARD, ESQ., SALEM. 

London, May 11, 1782. 
Dear Sir : 

Should your great and good ally obtain the two only very pro- 
bable objects of her American alliance, the impoverishment of 
Great Britain and the consequent seizure of the late English colo- 
nies, which she seems at present in a fair way for, no man on this 
side the Atlantic in his wits would, I think, whatever regard he 
may feel for his native country, willingly forego a bare subsistence 
here for French domination and wooden shoes there. I would 
just suggest to you, should America in this hour refuse the offers 
Great Britain may make of a separate peace ; or France refuse to 
suffer her, (for we well know here the power she has acquired over 
her,) and no partition treaty take place, (being in the present situ- 
ation the best to be expected,) depend upon it, you fathers of the 
present age will have it in their power ere many revolutions of the 
sun, to tell their children the inestimable civil, religious and politi- 
cal privileges you of this generation have wantoned away, and 
with sad regret recount the happy condition of former days ; nor 
will the comparison with those you will then mournfully experi- 



1782.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 34^ 

ence between English protection and French oppression, fail to 
enhance your misery. You will then find the little finger of French 
power heavier than the loin of the English government, with all its 
apprehended train of evils. As a proof of my needless fears or 
right judgment, convey my kind loye to your wife and children. 
^ Your friend, 

S. CURWEN. 

TO HON. JONATHAN SEW ALL, BRISTOL. 

London, May 12, 1782. 
Dear Sir : 

Confined as I have been, for near two years, to a very narrow 
circle without variety, like monotony in music, every thing about 
me is become insipid. I am therefore going into a scene of new 
objects, and hey for Flanders for a month. Naturalists say change 
of air, even from bad to worse, is good for the health of the body ; 
that of the Netherlands must, I think, be certainly salubrious and 
nutritive. How happy should I be to have so agreeable a com- 
panion as Judge Sewall. Who knows what effect a month's resi- 
dence may produce 1 For my part I fancy my thin lathy body in 
that air, and by the use of rich generous Burgundy, etc., procurable 
there at a cheap rate, may increase to a manly bulk. My heart 
would dilate with pride and pleasure to receive a note of compli- 
ance with my request — nor should I be displeased if your kinsman 
Samuel Sewall should join and make a trio. Please remember me 
to your family and those of our countrymen with you with whom 
I am acquainted. 

Very truly yours, 

S. CuRWEN. 

May 12. It is suggested that the new administration mean to 
increase the power of the crown by their projected new militia. 
As they have, or one of them at least, deceived the people by fre- 
quently declaring he had a peace in his pocket, when the event 
showed the falsehood of those declarations; should their other pre- 
tensions prove as futile and groundless, they will deserve the exe- 
cration of this and future generations, and will, I hope, meet a 
deserved fate. At best, however, I expect not much good, and 

44 



346 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1782. 

think ours an ill-compacted junto of very short duration : their 
principles are not uniform nor concurrent. 

May 17. At New England Coffee-house heard the glorious 
news ot Admiral Rodney's defeat and capture of the French Ad- 
miral de Grasse, with five capital ships, and one sunk. With Mr. 
Dalglish to Chelsea College Gardens — thence to Mr. Timmins's to 
tea. 

May IS. Trinquemale, the strongest garrison belonging to 
the Dutch, and called the Gibraltar of the East Indies, being the 
principal fortress on the island of Ceylon, has been captured by 
Admiral Sir Edward Hughes, who was going against another fort, 
■which he hoped to reduce. 

May 23. Dined at New England Coffee-house with New 
England company. 

May 24. With Mr. Dalglish went to Maddocks the florist's 
exhibition of tulips ; he pointed out the bell king and bell queen 
stocks, a beautiful and singular plant, which he is unable to in- 
crease, having derived but one offset in twenty-two years ; had 
been offered twenty-two guineas for it ; the tints are exquisitely fine. 

This day arrived further advice of Sir Samuel Hood's capture 
of two more French men-of-war, viz., L'Esprit of eighty guns, 
and Philo of seventy-four, and two frigates, the Amiable, thirty- 
two and Ceres eighteen, in the West Indies. 

May 25. Loitering through St. James's Park, and seeing 
many people collected around the rails of Buckingham House, 
stopped to see the Prince of Wales, who soon appeared in a phae- 
ton with Col. Tarleton, who, I was told, is frequently to be seen 
with him. 

June 3. Crossed Westminster bridge to visit Mrs. Hay and 
Mr. Dalglish. 

June 9. It is reported that the Russian ambassador announced 
that the czarina has declared, in case the Dutch refuse the offer 
Great Britain has made, which she pronounces liberal, that she 
will assist the English with her fleet — eighteen for channel service 
and twenty against the Dutch. 

June 25. To Queen dock, Wapping, to see Capt. Coombs on 
board a ship he is appointed to keep guard in ; stepped in at long 
room, custom-house. 



1782.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 347 

June 28. To Mark-lane corn market, to inquire for Indian 
corn, and was told there had been none for two years. Afterwards 
met Mr. Flucker in the Park, and conversed with him half an hour. 
Met T. Goldthwait, and rode with him to Charing Cross 5 invited 
me to dine at his house, Walthamstow. 

June 29. Took a long walk with Mr. Hutchinson. Met a 
man with a mug in his hand, which he said was once the famous 
Shakspeare's, and that he inherited it from his wife's father, who was 
heir to all Shakspeare's effects, being a descendant from him in the 
female line ; and that Garrick had offered ten gumeas for it 
when he celebrated the jubilee at Stratford upon Avon. The Pub- 
lic Advertiser to-day says, " Administration have very laudably de- 
termined on withdrawing their pensions from the American refu- 
gees ; so that next year," says the writer, " we may hope for 
some more haymakers than we are able to get for the present har- 
vest." An ill-natured and I hope untrue declaration. 

Ju^y 1. Visited Parson Peters; meeting there Parson Wiswall, 
accompanied him to Battersea bridge, having stepped into Don 
Saltero's cafe, Chelsea, and drank tea. 

TO REV. ISAAC SMITB. SIDMOUTH. 

JVear Brompton Chapel, July 2, 1782. 
Dear Sir : 

You desire me to be communicative about myself — a poor sub- 
ject, truly, to write about. I am, however, to thank you for your soli- 
citude, and at present, as you see by the date, am very near the 
house of God, but never enter therein, keeping steady to our con- 
venticle in Essex-street, Strand, which is my regular and constant 
Sunday's resort ; retaining still my old New England prejudice of 
observing the fourth commandment. My health is better than 
usual, having escaped the epidemic hitherto. 

Three days since I received a letter from T. B., wherein he 
acquaints me that our friends are well. I presume you have heard 
of the death of Judge Lynde and Clark Pickman. 

Your townsman Allen is dead, leaving Sir Wilham Pepperell 
and George Erving his executors, directing that his remains shall 
be removed after the troubles to the vault under King's Chapel, 
Boston. 



348 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1782. 

We have an American Thursday dinner club at the New Eng- 
land Coffee-house. 

Very truly your friend, 

S. CURWEN. 

July 3. Meeting Parson Wis wall, on whose recommendation 
I went to Battersea to engage lodgings for a fortnight j from thence 
to his church and attended prayers, where were present nine in the 
house exclusive of nine parish boys. From thence we set off by 
agreement on a walk to Kingston on the Thames, nine miles, arri- 
ving at the " Sun" where took a cold repast, a pottle of straw- 
berries ; arrived at lodgings before nine o'clock. New arrange- 
ment of ministry ; Lord Shelburne first commissioner of the 
treasury. Earl Temple secretary in lieu of Chs. Jas. Fox, and Mr. 
Pitt, a favorite patriotic speaker, in lieu of Lord Shelburne ; Burke 
out, and Barre also, with a pension of .£3,200 per annum ; Duke 
of Manchester lord chamberlain. 

July 4. Went to London to the Thursday dinner at New 
England Coffee-house. 

July 5. Went to Westminster, and in the lobby of the House 
of Commons heard that Charles J. Fox, Lord John Cavendish, 
Edmund Burke, and General Conway, have been dismissed from 
the king's service ; the former on account of his speech last 
Monday, declaring the independency of America to be agreed on, 
which Lord Shelburne denied, having steadily refused his consent 
thereto. Lord Rockingham's death, which happened last Monday, 
has very probably hastened the present event. Returned as far as 
Mr. Elisha Hutchinson's, Brompton, and drank tea with the 
family. 

July IL Dined as usual at New England fish-club dinner. 
The king prorogued Parliament, and made a speech from the 
throne in his robes and crown. 

July 16. At Parson Peters's met young Parson Clarke, and 
observing him speak articulately, and with some degree of clear- 
ness, expressed my surprise ; and inquiring the cause, he told me 
his speech came to him on a sudden, and on the very day seven 
years that he was first seized with the incapability of uttering 
sounds. 



1782.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 349 

July 21. To Kensington Gardens ; there met Thomas Danforth 
and Samuel Porter ; the latter related an account of his voyage to 
Oporto. 

July 22. Went to Claphara Common to dine with Mr. Gilbert 
Harrison ; Mr. Toulmin and his lady's mother there. Returned 
through the fields ; the hedges perfumed by sweet smelling blossoms. 

July 25. Had a view of the Duke of Cumberland's sailing 
match on the river, from Mr. Hay's summer-house on the bank. 
River covered with barges and boats, oars, scullers and sails ; the 
duke in his own barge, ensign red, having an anchor and a length 
of cable in gold-leaf depicted thereon. A great concourse attended ; 
he was in going saluted by a discharge of small cannon ; the 
boats departed from Blackfriars bridge, length of course to Putney 
bridge ; premium a silver cup of j£50 value. 

July 27. Dined at New England Coffee-house on fish in com- 
pany with Mr. Flucker, Francis Waldo, Mr. Hutchinson, Thomas 
Goldthwait, etc. 

July 29. Through Hackney to Walthamstow, where dined 
with Mr. Goldthwait. 

Jiugust 3. In passing Bird-cage Walk had a slight glimpse 
of Count de Grasse at Sir Peter Parker's window ; he is a stout, 
very tall man. 

August 4. At Battersea church ; the vicar. Parson Gardner, 
preached. 

August 21. W^rote Mr. Elisha Hutchinson at Birmingham. 
Afterwards went to Capt. Coombs' at a Mr. Birch's, beyond Folly 
Bridge, Dockhead ; on the door of a meeting-house I passed ob- 
served the following words written in chalk, " We have erred and 
strayed.'' Unless the supporters of the doctrine of necessity, or 
even expediency, of a universal conformity to a state establishment 
of the form of religious worship, can lay its foundation in reason or 
a command in holy writ, I defy the ablest disputant to prove me 
or any dissenter in England or elsewhere guilty of a fault in ad- 
hering to a different mode of external worship, or schism in a bad 
sense. On the contrary, all political establishments being tinctured 
with the reigning principles of the times when they were founded, 
and men's notions and opinions changing with fashions, usages, 
customs and language, a continued sameness is utterly impossible ; 



350 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1782. 

the endeavor therefore to compel men is offering a violence to the 
understanding, and denotes the character called in Scripture the 
man of sin, wherever found. 

August 28. Over Westminster Bridge to Mrs. Chapman's, 
Kensington, to visit Mrs, Hay. Mr. Danforth called. Drank tea 
at Parson Peters's. 

August 31. This day the papers announce Prince William 
Henry's* death, at New-York, being the second breach in the 
royal family. Prince Alfred, the youngest, having died last week. 
There remain a dozen, a heavy burden yet on the national finances. 
Called on Mr. Danforth, and there met Mr. Brewer, late governor 
of Bermuda ; Mr. Danforth is assisting him in preparing his papers 
in answer to sixteen allegations or acts of complaint lodged in the 
king's council against hira. 

Sept. 1. Attended worship at St. Martin's ; Mr. Harrison 
preached to a full assembly. After describing Christian poverty of 
spirit, and assigning some reasons why Christ began his first public 
discourse by recommending this virtue, he mentioned two sorts of 
men who were wholly destitute of it, viz., those Calvinistic profes- 
sors who pretended to a certainty of their salvation, and those who 
claimed it as a merit due to their good works ; both of whom he 
pronounced deficient in the distinguishing characteristic of Christ's 
religion. 

Sept. 3. Capts. Peters and Walker called and took tea with 
me ; the former a brother of Parson Samuel Peters, the latter from 
W^orcester. 

Sept. 5, In walking through Parliament-street and seeing 
crowds running through Scotland-yard, joined them, and on in- 
quiry found they were accompanying Parson Lloyd, a clergyman, 
returned from Bow-street Justices' examination to Westminster 
Bridewell, from whence he was taken this morning on a complaint 
of highway robbery ; and it is said he is identified. He seemed 
hardened, and of a rough, bold cast, and begged with a careless 
boldness money of every well dressed person that passed as he was 
being conducted to prison in irons ; his right hand being also 
chained to an officer's, or one of the justice's men. 

Sept. 6. Called at Mr. Wiswall's to accompany him to Holy- 

• Premature — he became king at tlie decease of his brother George IV. 



1782.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 351 

well-lane, as far as the gateway of King John's palace, which he 
never had seen before. 

Sept. 1. Over Westminster Bridge to turnpike head of Kent- 
street, designing to go to Edmund's great gardens at Deptford ; 
but the time being far spent, and they a mile and a half distant, 
I proceeded no further ; and turning my steps homeward, passed 
through Kent-street, a long narrow one, of low ordinary houses, 
and inhabitants corresponding ; scarcely one reputable person ap- 
pearing in view. 

Sept. 9. To Mr. Edmund's house, the great Deptford gardener, 
to see his asparagus lot of forty acres. 

Sept. 11. Went with Mr. Peters to Mr. Hunter's seat at Hamp- 
stead, west end — arrived at one o'clock; kindly welcomed, dined, 
drank tea, and departed at six o'clock. Passing through the fields, 
arrived at the Edgeware road, where one of the queen's coaches 
returning to town received us in. 

Sept. 13. Called on Parson Peters, from whom learned more 
of the convulsed state of Massachusetts and Connecticut than I had 
heard before. The people there are more impatient than elsewhere 
under public expenses, and retain more of the old republican leaven ; 
but 1 know not whether they have not more political discernment 
and attend more closely to the steps of their rulers ; and in truth 
the BMe, the law-book, and the gun, are more used there than in 
any part of the English dominions; therefore more than anywhere 
else on the face of the globe — no other country having had so 
great a share of political and civil liberty. By the packet from 
New-York, Sir William Pepperell here has received a letter from 
the Rev. William Walter there, informing him that the counties of 
Worcester and Hampshire, in the Massachusetts Bay, have declined 
sending members to the provincial assembly, and also the payment 
of the tax of eight shillings on each head through the United 
States, laid by Congress, amounting to four millions of hard dol-. 
lars, and that it had only raised twenty thousand. That the said 
counties had sent to know of Sir Guy Carleton on what terms Great 
Britain would receive them. Also that courts of justice and all 
law proceedings were stopped in Berkshire as well as in Worcester 
and Hampshire, a general uneasiness having taken place by the 
Congress's requisition to pay the tax in hard money. 



352 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1782. 

It is also reported that Dr. Saunders had received private letters, 
acquainting him that four of the colonies had protested against con- 
tinuing any longer their French alliance. 

Sept. 14. Walked to Sraithfield bars ; saw for the first time 
since its demolition old Hicks's Hall, a few remains and rubbish 
only, leaving road to St. John's-street very commodious and wide. 

Lord Howe sailed with thirty-four ships to the rehef of Gibral- 
tar. 

Sept. 26. It is announced that a commission was last Tuesday 
perfected under the great seal, empowering General Sir Guy 
Carleton and Admiral Digby at New-York to acknowledge 
American independence ; and to treat with Congress, or either of 
the thirteen states, or any body of men. A fine bargain, truly, has 
this once powerful wealthy state offered to their lately despised 
colonies. But human policy sometimes overshoots its mark ; 
human wisdom is narrow, and human designs are controlled by a 
wiser director than govern court-cabinet councils, and who acts on 
broader plans. 

Sept. 30. Went to the city to deliver a letter for conveyance 
to Rev. Mr. Peters ; from Blackfriars Bridge had a sight of city 
barges with flags displayed, rowing down stream ; having the 
sheriffs, lord mayor and aldermen returning from Westminster Hall, 
the former being this day sworn into office by one of the barons of 
the exchequer. 

Oct. 4. Advices received at Lord Shelburne's that the siege 
of Gibraltar is raised. 

Oct. 7. It is reported to-day, that the Spanish floating gun- 
batteries had been defeated before Gibraltar ; eleven burnt, sunk, 
and destroyed, having one hundred and ninety-three brass cannon 
of twenty-four pound shot, besides one hundred and fifty iron, same 
calibre ; between fifteen hundred and two thousand men ; it hav- 
ing been a general assault, begun on St. Louis's day, September 
9th, and completed 13th ; — three hundred poor souls General Elliot 
picked up in the water after the batteries were sunk, and sent them 
in the same day to their friends and country : this by a letter from 
the Ha sue. 



1782,] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 353 

TO MR. ANDREW DALGLISH, GLASGOW. 

Lo7idon, Oct. 7, 1782. 
Dear Sir : 

In Hampshire government the opposition has been so general 
and violent as to require a body of French soldiers to be sent 
against them, who, on attempting to reduce the insurgents, were 
attacked, and some lives on both sides lost, without accomplishing 
the purpose of their errand.* Yet for all this there is not the least 
disposition in general, as a state, to accept of the terms Great 
Britain has offered without the concurrence of their great and good 
ally. On General Carleton's proclamation, the Congress and con- 
tinental governments declared it insidious, and despised the offer of 
independence, which they contemptuously said did not depend on 
the consent of Great Britain. 

The letter you inquire about was written by Parson Walter, 
whom you know very well, and is of the same complexion with all 
advices received from that quarter, which, ever since the com- 
mencement of this quarrel, have been amusing the public with as- 
surances of a speedy reduction of the rebellion, as they term it ; 
florid descriptions of the desperate situation of the rebel army ; the 
sufferings of the country, a growing dislike of Congressional 
authority, mutual heart-burnings and quarrels amongst its members, 
and an increasing affection towards the mother country ; all which 
from the first I disbelieved, and it now proves in event, after a 
course of six years' delusion, to have been the phantoms of a heated 
party imagination. 

I have seen at large a relation of the distresses and inability of 
the New- York government under the republican rulers, in a repre- 
sentation made by the House of Assembly to their government ; the 
picture perhaps may serve for the rest of the colonies. It is the 
opinion of some refugees that New- York is by this time evacuated, 
and if one may judge from analogy, I think it is not improbable ; 
for there never was a time when government had so fair a prospect 
of overturning that mighty colossus of independency as now : — 
their distresses never greater, their resources exhausted, loans not 
to be obtained, French troops few in number, and their own army 

* Wholly incorrect. 

45 



354 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1782. 

dwindled to a pitiful size ; but the die is cast, and as the same ill 
star which has had the ascendant ever since this baneful quarrel 
commenced still continues to shed its malignant influence, govern- 
ment has formally offered America unconditional independency 
under the royal sign manual. Gen. Carleton writes that the colo- 
nies are so determined against all governmental connections with 
Great Britain, that if they cannot maintain their independency, they 
will declare themselves colonies of France, and if they must be 
slaves they will take a new yoke, however galling, rather than put 
on the old one ; this, by the way, is carrying political resentment 
to the highest pitch of folly and frenzy. 

Very truly your friend, 

S. CURWEN. 

Od. 9. This day, for sundry reasons, ought to be Inserted in 
the very short list of dies alhi, (white days,) which I note, that on 
inspection I may refresh my memory with a pleasing recollection 
amidst the gloom, that from a constrained absence from my native 
country but too generally overspreads my grief-laden mind. 

Od. 11. Attended Mayne the banker's sale of goods, and also 
Beranger's, late gentleman of the horse to his majesty ; bought 
nothing ', things well sold. Mr. William Clarke drank tea with me. 

Od. 15. I am told by Mr. Rose no orders are to be delivered 
till the commissioners, consisting of two members of parliament, 
Mr. Coke and Mr. Wilmot, have examined the refugee claimers 
and their claims ; that it may require more than a month's time. 
Proceeded to Oxford-street to pay Mr. Danforth a visit ; whilst 
there Mr. Hale entered. Met in streets many returning from an 
execution of ten felons at Tyburn. 

Od. 16. In conversation with a gentleman at an ordinary, I 
observed in him the prevailing characteristic infirmity of this 
nation, rendering them both envied and hated by Europe, viz., an 
overweening conceit of English bravery, accompanied with a con- 
tempt for other nations ; which in this day of their distress they 
now feel the sad effects of, in the cool indifference the other states 
view her embarrassments, though without producing a reformation 
as far as I can perceive. It is generally believed the French and 
Spaniards will retire from before Gibraltar on the approach of the 



1782.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 355 

fleet under Lord Howe ; in case of reverse, I know not what rage, 
disappointment, and despair might be the natural effects ; the 
pohtical evils are too obvious not to be seen and dreaded. 

Oct. 17. It is reported the Bavarian resident minister has 
received the following important advices, viz., that Lord Howe has 
had an engagement with the combined fleets ; taken twelve and de- 
stroyed seven, with the loss of four or five of his own ships ; all 
taken are Spanish, not a French one among them ; they retreated 
into Cadiz harbor, and he pursued his course to Gibraltar, which 
is thereby relieved, being the great object of his voyage. 

A few hours after, the above was followed by another, viz., — 
that Lord Howe in defence of Gibraltar had surrendered to the 
successful arms of the combined fleet. 

By Captain Afflick from New-York, is arrived a confirmation 
of the loss of the French seventy-four, the Magnifique, with the 
Triuraphante of eighty guns from the West Indies under Vaudreuil, 
bound to Boston ; the one foundered, the other ran ashore at Point 
Alderton ; also the loss of the British ship Lion of sixty-four guns 
on her passage to New-York. 'Tis said also transports are gone 
from New-York to take off the troops, etc., from Charleston, and 
that they are also abandoning New-York ; government being in 
that case determined to take away every difficulty respecting Ame- 
rican independence, to bring on a treaty for a general peace. 

Oct. IS. Passing through Tooley-street in the Borough, ob- 
served the name of Southernwood on a door ; having knowledge of 
one of that name in my first voyage to London in 1738, I am 
determined to call and make inquiry about the family of Cottenbilt, 
with whom I then lived. 

Oct. 19. Went on a visit to Mr. Danforth ; acquainted him 
with Mr. and Mrs. Hay's compliments and invitation to dinner to- 
morrow with me at their house No. 4 Golden-square ; staid till 
eight. 

Oct. 23. To Treasury ; gave a card with my name and ad- 
dress to a Mr. Allen, clerk to Mr. Townshend, one of the secretaries 
of state, agreeably to an order, to be questioned as to my claims as 
a refugee for support ; the value of my estate and effects left 
behind, losses sustained, etc. etc. 

Oct. 25. Went at eleven o'clock, in compliance with a sum- 



356 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1782, 

mons from Messrs. Wilmot and Cooke, (members of Parliament, 
chosen by the lords of the treasury to examine the claims of the 
American sufferers, state their claims and produce vouchers,) to 
attend them at the American secretary's office. Treasury-house, 
"Whitehall. Was examined and dismissed, after being directed to 
bring a certificate of my being a person of property, and of steady 
uniform attachment to principles of loyalty, which I propose to 
bring from the late provincial secretary, Mr. Flucker. 

Oct. 26. Drank tea at Samuel H. Sparhawk's, Bedford-court, 
Red-Lion square, and remained till nine o'clock. 

Oct. 28. Passed afternoon and evening at Mr. Danforth's, 
who assisted me in drawing up my certificate to present to the 
commissioners. In the evening Dr. Jeffries, a brother exile, called 
in and announced the arrival of an express with advice that Lord 
Howe is relieving Gibraltar ; the French and Spanish looking 
on him from Algeziras bay without even attempting to loose ground 
and meet him ; an apparent proof that with fifty-one capital ships 
they thought themselves unequal to his fleet of thirty -four. It is 
likewise added, that the Spaniards by the late high wind have lost 
three ships. 

Oct. 29. Went to Mr. Flucker's w^ith the following certificate 
for his signature, viz. : — " General Gage and Governor Oliver 
being absent from London, we, the subscribers, do certify that 
Samuel Curvven, Esq., late of Salem, in the province of Massa- 
chusetts Bay, is descended from an ancient and respectable family 
in said province. That he has been a deputy Judge of Admiralty 
and Provincial Impost Officer, and for near thirty years in the com- 
mission of the peace for the county of Essex ; had always main- 
tained a most respectable character, and was early distinguished 
for his attachment to the established constitution of the province, 
and its dependence on and subordination to the authority of the 
kino- of Great Britain, and was esteemed a gentleman of consider- 
able property and fortune." 

Called in the afternoon and received my certificate, signed, 
" Thomas Flucker, secretary of the provuice of Massachusetts Bay." 
While there, joined by CoL Morrow, just arrived from Cowbridge, 
in Wales, on a like errand. 

Oct. 3 L Called at Mr. Timmins's j he was engaged in pack- 



1782.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. • 357 

ing up his goods in order to remove to Wolverhampton, where he 
is about commencing business. 

Mov. 1. To Pimlico, where took tea with Parson Peters. 

JYov. 2. Reported that Lord Howe has had an engagement 
with the combined fleet, and has defeated and dispersed it. 

JYov. 8. Saw in my landlord's parlor the poorest nobleman I 
believe in the three kingdoms, a Lord Kirkcudbright, brought up a 
glover, and who for years worked at this trade in Glasgow ; he is 
now a captain in the king's guards. Passing a coach, I observed 
its number 1000, the highest number licensed. 

JVov. 11. Received my order for quarter's pension of £25 ; 
the first given to any refugee on the new establishment of no de- 
duction to the officer of commissions. 

JYov. 25. Cold air : St. James's canal frozen hard enough to 
bear skating on. 

JYov. 26. The meeting of Parliament summoned for to-day is 
postponed to Thursday 5th proximo, in expectation that the com- 
missioners at Paris may by that time come to their ultimate deter- 
mination about peace or war ; or on the preliminaries whereon a 
peace is to be founded. France and Holland fancy they see too 
well the probable consequences of prolonging the war, to accept the 
terms proposed ; presuming in the issue Great Britain must accede 
to what they shall demand, and who does not 1 None, I dare say, 
but those who will not, and only such are blind. 

JYov. 21. Newspapers filled with contradictory reports about 
peace \ all dread a continuance of this nefarious, ill-omened, ill- 
judged, distracted quarrel. 

JYov. 30. Dined and passed the day at Capt. Hay's. Mrs. Chap- 
man, with whom these my friends board at Kensington Common, 
near Vauxhall Gardens, says that the famous Sterne, author of 
" Tristram Shandy,''' " Sentimental Journey, '' etc., was totally void 
of the fine feehngs of humanity, which he so beautifully paints, and 
are characteristics of his writings, which in respect thereto show him 
to be an original genius -, and but ill discharged the various relative 
duties of life ; one instance only excepted, which was an immoderate 
fondness of an only daughter. As a proof among others, he suffered 
<in aged mother, which but for the proof of it is hardly to be credited, 
to die in a jail for want of money to discharge a debt of twenty 



358 • JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1782. 

pounds. The public ought to know the character of a writer who 
so ill in practice exemplified what his pen so justly and beautifully 
describes. This was told her by a very intimate acquaintance of 
Sterne, who was personally informed of his whole history. 

Dec. 3. Yesterday Vergennes' secretary brought notice that 
the commissioners appointed by Great Britain and the thirteen 
United States, had signed a provisional treaty, whereupon stocks 
rose five per cent. The following letter was published : 

Whitehall, Dec. 3, 1782. 
The Right Honorable the Lord Mayor : 

In consequence of my letter to your lordship of the 22d ult., I 
take the earliest opportunity of acquainting you that a messenger 
is this moment arrived from Paris with an account of provisional 
articles having been signed on the 30th ult., by his majesty's com- 
missioners and the commissioners of the United States of America, 
to be inserted in and constitute a treaty of peace, which is to be 
concluded when terms of a peace shall be agreed upon between 
Great Britain and France. 

I am, etc., 

I. TOWNSHEND. 

Dec. 4. Called on Mr. Heard at Herald's office; there learned, 
in a conversation with a Mr. Webb, of seeming great political 
knowledge, that at the time the House of Commons left the late 
administration in a minority, or in other words, refused to support 
Lord North's measures, the king took it to heart, and resented it so 
far as to declare he would leave them (as he expressed it) to them- 
selves, and go over to Hanover, from whence his family came, and 
proceeded so far as to order the administration to provide two yachts 
to transport himself there ; whereupon the queen interfered, and 
remonstrated against such a desperate measure, so fatal to her and 
his family, as well as his own personal interest. Others, too, repre- 
sented the distressful condition to which the nation would be re- 
duced by the absence and want of royal authority, though it 
seemed to little effect, so sadly chagrined and provoked was he. 

Lord Rockingham also joined the remonstrants, and showed 
the necessity of a change of men and measures, with no better 



1782.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 359 

success ; — so naturally obstinate and pertinaciously bent was he on 
his favorite plan of subjugating his (here called) rebellious subjects 
in America, and bringing them to his feet, till he was told that as 
sure as he set his foot out of the kingdom, the parliament would 
declare the crown abdicated and the throne vacant, nor would he 
ever be permitted to re-enter the kingdom again, — which argu- 
ment, it seems, brought him to a more cool and juster sight of the 
folly of such a step, and the absolute necessity of stooping to a 
compliance with the requisitions of the public. I do not pretend 
to indicate the measures of opposition, but a more unsuccessful ad- 
ministration, from whatever cause it proceeded, which time will 
satisfactorily perhaps explain, was never before engaged to promote 
royal designs. What may be the condition of Great Britain and 
America at the period of the present distressful war, God knows ; 
for my own part, I tremble at the event, as desirable as it may be, 
for I can view neither country without the most fearful apprehen- 
sions of dreadful distresses ; whoever began and voluntarily con- 
tinued this unreasonable, pernicious dispute, does and will deserve 
the execration of this and future ages, and in the language of 
****," The child will rue, that is yet unborn, the fatal mea- 
sures of Lord North's administration." 

Dec. 5. The king delivered his speech from the throne. I 
went to see him robe and sit on the throne at the House of Lords ; 
he was clothed in green laced with gold when he came, and when 
he went, in red laced ; it being the custom to change his garments. 
The tail of his wig was in a broad, flowing, loose manner ; called 
the coronation tail. His abode in the lords' chamber scarce ex- 
ceeded half an hour, in which he read his speech of eleven pages. 

As one proof among many that might be given of the restraint 
and disguise of real sentiments on the part of courtiers, from the 
highest character in the presence chamber to the lowest lounger 
and attendant at ministerial levees, take the following : — When the 
king found himself obliged to take new ministers, and give up Lord 
North and his associates, it is notorious that it was abhorrent to the 
royal mind, and being naturally of a pertinacious, obstinate temper, 
was with the utmost difficulty brought to yield a reluctant consent. 
On the first court day after the appointment, when he was in a 
manner forced out of his closet into the room of audience, he re- 



360 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1782. 

ceived his new servants with a smile, and transacted business with 
them afterwards with as much seeming cordiality and openness, as 
if they had been in his favor, and in his most intimate conceits ; so 
seemingly satisfied and so serene was the royal countenance, that 
all the newspapers sounded forth the gracious monarch's obliging, 
condescending goodness to the public wishes, though nothing was 
farther from his heart, had not the necessity of his affairs impelled 
him thereto. At the same time coming up to Mr. Wilkes, he said 
he was glad of the opportunity to thank him for his very proper 
and laudable behavior in the late riot ; took notice of his looks, 
which indicated a want of health, advised him to a country air and 
exercise, W'hich, said his majesty, I find by experience an excellent 
expedient to procure and preserve health ; all this with the same 
apparent sincerity, as if they had been in a continued course of 
paying and receiving compliments, congratulations, and acknow- 
ledgments for mutual kindnesses and good offices, though all the 
world knows there was not a man in the three kingdoms more 
thoroughly hated, nor whom he had taken a more foolish and un- 
necessary pains to ruin. The above-mentioned interview being 
told of in company, Mr. Wilkes took occasion to remark in the 
following words : — " To have heard the king, one would have 
thought I was consulting a quack on the score of my health." 

Dec. 6. Read the king's speech, declaring his offer of inde- 
pendency to America, and his hopes soon of a general peace. 

Dec. 16. Received from a Cumberlander a note informing me 
of Miss Curwen, an heiress of said county, having married with a 
Mr. Christian, possessing a small estate adjoining her large one. 

Dec. 17. Dined at Capt. Hay's, with Mr. Danforth and a Mr. 
Burges, a warm opposer of American independence, who asserted 
that a great majority of his countrymen (English) abhor the idea, 
(which Mr. Danforth silently controverts,) declaring they will for- 
cibly oppose the plan ; thinks the minister who attempts it deserves 
the gallows, and will join in bringing him to it ; with this reserve 
only, should Lord North and a great majority of the parliament co- 
incide, then it would be proper for the nation to acquiesce; he 
also declared his abhorrence of the successors of Lord North and 
his associates. 

Dec. 20. Went to general court martial at the Horse Guards, 



1782.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 361 

on General Murray, and abode in the crowd two hours, till adjourn- 
ment at three o'clock ; in the course of the trial, a witness in favor 
of the impeached had been several times called for on account of 
some privateers he was accused of being concerned in, particularly 
the Hannah, afterwards bought for government service. Sir Wil- 
liam Draper proposed that the witness should be asked whether 
Gen. Murray had received any profits on the sale of prize goods ; 
the demand threw Gen. Murray into an apparent embarrassment, 
and cast a concern on his face, to me very plainly to be seen ; but 
his witness, Neal, with an unblushing, unembarrassed, brazen 
countenance, relieved his friend by giving a direct negative. Sir 
William, expressing great astonishment, turning to him asked, 
" Do you, upon your oath, say that you do not know that General 
Murray had any profits arising from the sale of prize goods ?" 
The witness repeatedly said he did not know he had, which seemed 
to put Sir William into an agitation. This thorough-paced witness 
appeared determined not to do his w^ork by halves. I know not 
what effect a true answer to the question would have had, but it 
seems it might have led to an inquiry which the general would, 
perhaps, be glad to prevent. 

Dec. 21. At court-martial, and in the course of this day's evi- 
dence, it appears that Sir Wm. Draper catches hold of every cir- 
cumstance that can possibly admit of the least complaints ; and what 
man's conduct, who is possessed of discretionary powers, does not ; 
at least, it appears General Murray has not acted a base, rapacious 
part, nor tyrannical ; at least, not seemingly beyond the limits of 
his written commissions as governor and vice-admiral of the island 
and its dependencies —prudently saving appearances. In the issue, 
by the complexion of facts at this stage, not to anticipate, I fancy 
he may acquit himself, if not with great honor, at least without 
bl^me : nor perhaps may Sir WiUiam incur the disgraceful blame 
of Admiral Keppel's accuser, Sir Hugh Palliser. Though the 
prosecution of both really proceeded from the same cause, a real 
dislike ; the accusers of each, in other respects, stand under very 
different predicaments. 

Dec. 23. Two hours at the Horse Guards at General Murray's 
trial J letters between the parties were read that manifested suffi- 
ciently mutual heart-burnings and antipathies. 

46 



362 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1782. 

Dec. 28. Jhe papers announce the refugees forsaken or neg- 
lected by Lord Shelburne and his compeers ; the gratitude of courts 
ought to be reckoned among the nonentities of Lord Rochester's 
list. For my own part, I am too far down the hill of lite to be 
much distressed at the events of a peace with America on any terms, 
or continued war — let the younger look to it. This day completes 
my sixty-seventh year ; with more propriety than Jacob, I may 
truly say, " Few and evil have been the days of the years of my 
life.'^ God best knows when a period will be put to them; its 
suddenness 1 deprecate not — may I not be unprepared for the event. 

Dec. 3L "Walked in the Park with Robert Lechmere. Capt, 
Coombs took tea with me, and Mr. Wiswall called. 



1783.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 363 



CHAPTER XVII. 

London, Jan. 6, 1783. Walked for two hours in ihe Park ; 
saw Lord Shelburne for the first time to my knowledge. He is of 
a middling size and well set ; walks strong and springy ; his dress 
a brown frock and boots, with a whip in his hand. 

Jan. 7. On an inquiry concerning Mr. Cottenbilt, I find he 
died about six years since, and his wife about twenty : two daugh- 
ters, six and seven years old when I lodged with them in Whale- 
bone-court, in 1738, are now living and widows, one at Enfield, 
and the other in Holland. 

Jan. 9. Walked to Brompton ; visited Mr. Hutchinson ; drank 
tea and passed the evening with Mr. Danforth in philosophical 
conversation. 

Jan. 17. Met my former townsman and neighbor, George 
Deblois, in Cheapside, whom I have not seen for more than seven 
years j gave him my address. 

Jan. 21. In passing along Parliament-street, saw a long fu- 
neral procession, say fifty carriages ; on inquiry, found it was an 
officer named Townshend, who had served in America. 

Jaji. 23. Advices have arrived that the British troops have left 
Charleston and arrived at New-York j and yesterday the Commons 
completely liberated Ireland from its oppressive thraldom, to which 
it has been subject to the king and his ministers for many years. 

Jan. 24. This day strong reports that preliminaries of peace 
are signed. It is said great sacrifices are to be made by the 
British in the east ; if that be all, it will be well. Lord Grant- 
ham, one of the secretaries of state, acquainted the lord mayor that 
the preliminaries were signed ; this is a matter of joy to all well 
disposed to the true interest of their country. It is said to be a much 
more favorable peace than, all things considered, could be expected. 

Jan. 25. George Deblois and Capt. Coombs took tea with me 
and passed the evening. 

Jan. 28. Mr. Danforth told me of a meeting of Massachusetts 



364 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1783. 

refugees at Sir William Pepperell's, to deliberate on what may be 
proper to be done respecting an application. Meeting adjourned 
till Saturday next at same place. 

Jan. 29. At king's bench, Westminster Hall; heard a judg- 
ment on a point of law respecting the license of a dissenting 
meeting-house, given against the justices, who endeavored to avail 
themselves of a subterfuge to avoid granting it ; wherein Lord 
Mansfield spoke sharply to the counsel for the justices. Afternoon 
at New England Coffee-house, reading the preliminaries of peace, 
which I confess astonish me : — a tract equal to half of Europe is 
surrendered. 

Jan. 30. Kmg Charleses Day. Attended service at Westmin- 
ster Abbey; a considerable throng of fellow-worshippers in the 
great aisle of the choir ; my station or seat was in the prebend's 
stall. Dr. Bagot, the lately elected bishop of Bristol, of a most 
diminutive size, preached a loyal court sermon, giving the Church 
of England's styled loyal martyr a most exalted character ; which 
if just, that unhappy prince has been sadly misrepresented. He 
did not, however, descend to scurrillities or abuse ; thorough-paced 
in hierarchical principles, but not intolerant. 

Feb. 1. Attended a meeting of refugees at Sir William Pep- 
perell's house, Wimpole-street, to consider of somewhat to be done 
respecting an application to Parliament, if agreeable to administra- 
tion. Chose Sir William Pepperell agent to inquire of Mr. 
Secretary Townshend and Lord Shelburne, first lord of the treasury, 
if this course is acceptable to them. 

Lord North approves of it, and advises all the colonies to unite 
together. Broke up at three o'clock ; number present thirty-three 
— being all or nearly all in town that had received treasury allow- 
ances. 

Feb. 3. Met my countryman Mr. John Powell, from Ludlow ; 
also met Mr. De Berdt, whom I had not seen for seven years ; he 
having resided in the country since his marriage, six years ago. 
Agreed to dine with him to-morrow. My townsman, Samuel 
Porter, also came to see me ; neither time, climate, change of place 
or circumstances will ever alter this man's character ; I never knew 
one whose characteristic qualities are so deeply impressed as his. 
Feb. 5. Attended the adjournment of the Massachusetts refu- 



1783,] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 365 

gees at" Turk's Head, Gerard-street, Soho ; when Sir William 
Pepperell reported that Lord Shelburne, by Mr. Secretary Towns- 
hend, thought the present an improper time to present a petition to 
Parliament. We enlarged his powers, etc., and after much con- 
versation on sundry particulars adjourned to next Saturday week 
at same place. Thirty present. 

Feb. 7. By the papers of this day it appears that the ratifica- 
tion of the preliminaries was signed by the French king on the 
3d instant, and are arrived here as soon as completed. The part 
of France received by Mr. Fitzherbert and forwarded. The Dutch 
have not yet acceded. An armistice or cessation of hostility by sea 
agreed on between us. 

Feb. 11. Informed that Sir William Pepperell has summoned 
a part of the Massachusetts refugees to meet at " Turk's-Head" for 
a special occasion : — called at the Treasury, was informed that a 
board would be held this week, and the commissioners' report 
acted on, and orders respecting the Americans given out. 

Feb. 13. Notified to attend a meetino; of relugees — voted to 
empower Sir Wm. Pepperell to join in a petition to Parliament 
malgre au ministre d'etat, (in spite of the minister of state.) 

TO REV. ISAAC SMITH, SIDMOUTH. 

London, Feb. 11, 1783. 
Dear Sir : 

Perhaps it may not be unpleasing to you to be made acquainted 
that the refugees from the province of Massachusetts Bay, under 
the denomination of loyalists, to the number of thirty- three, met at 
Sir William Pepperell's to consult about the choice of an agent to 
confer with the agents of the other provinces, in order to form a 
plan for addressing, remonstrating, or petitioning Parliament ; but 
whether of the three I am ignorant, though present at the choice, 
which by an unanimous vote fell on Sir William ; — and also to re- 
ceive a report from him of Mr. Secretary Townshend's answer 
respecting Lord Shelburne's approbation or disapprobation, without 
the former it being judged improper to proceed. Mr. Townshend 
excused himself to Sir William for not having applied to Lord 
Shelburne, by pleading business, but promised to call on him the 
next day, etc., if practicable, and thus the affair stood till the 5th 



366 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1783. 

inst., to which time the meeting was adjourned, when Sir William 
reported that Lord Shelbume thought the present an improper time 
to present a petition to Parliament, Since the meeting I find there 
are those averse to all measures at present, and amongst others I 
confess myself a dissentient for the following reason : the king 
having taken the refugees under his care by recommending their 
case to the consideration of Parliament. 

Expectation is on tiptoe respecting the result of the commis- 
sioners, Wilmot and Coke, chosen by the lords of the treasury to 
examine, settle, adjust and proportion the claims and allowances of 
the refugees, who have been and are on the list of grantees — 
before whom we in that class have been. Some are apprehensive 
of a retrenchment ; some have too much reason to fear a total ex- 
cision ; very few, indeed, have hopes of an addition. It is reported 
and expected that the petitioners who hitherto have had no allow- 
ances, will be soon called before them to show the grounds of their 
pretences to governmental charity, when probably some pittance 
will be granted. The salaries of all the officers under the crown 
in the thirteen United States have been for some time past struck 
off; and part to some will be given under the same denomination 
with us, who have held none before. Judge Auchmuty of Boston 
has for these several months been annihilated, and reduced to the 
condition of a humble petitioner for a hundred pounds. 

Sir William finding his powers too limited, they were enlarged, 
and he is now empow^ered to consult and act in all cases in con- 
junction with the agents from the other provinces, giving his 
private word not to take any important step without consulting his 
constituents ; which precaution was universally thought necessary, 
as Joseph Galloway is suspected of sinister designs. 

It is said that they are making great retrenchments in offices 
and officers' salaries and fees. Think you while this spirit lasts, we 
useless, burdensome aliens shall escape untouched ? that we dogs 
shall be longer suffered to take the bread out of their own chil- 
dren's mouths ? I trow not. 

I fancy you wonder at the terms granted America, as all the 
world does ; but perhaps it may abate when you shall be told the 
agent Mr. Oswald is eighty-two years old, has been a correspond- 
ent of Congress, and is a very particular friend of Mr. Laurens. 



1783.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 367 

As Americans will have a right by treaty to navigate the lakes 
to and from the ocean, and almost the whole of the country where 
furs are taken lies within the territories, it will be well if Great 
Britain gets any supply of that commodity but from the high 
mightinesses of America. Whether our rulers had any, and what 
concealed purpose in this American treaty, I have not penetration 
enough to discover ; that it proceeded from ignorance is hardly 
supposable, if from inattention, unpardonable ; and I confess the 
last most likely ; for had the wish of administration been ever so 
violent to compromise at all events matters with America, it is not 
supposable she would ultimately have insisted on such immeasura- 
ble tracts, which far exceed all Europe in extent. But it is now 
irrecoverable; the die is cast — the ratification completed here and 
sent to France, and on the 3d was ratified there and exchanged. 
That a peace was necessary, all moderate men allow, and most, 
that in all other respects saving America it is as favorable as could 
have been expected ; in my mind better. I think our enemies 
have shown laudable moderation. 

With great regard, 

S. CURWEN. 

TO REV. ISAAC SMITH, SIDMOUTH. 

London, Feb. 14, 1783. 
Dear Sir : 

In a letter I received yesterday from my friend William Pyn- 
chon, Esq. of Salem, is the following : — " Capt. John Derby will 
most willingly accommodate any of his countrymen who may wish 
to return with him." Capt. Derby, in a large ship of his brother's, 
is now at Nantz, to return in a month ; which is encouraging to 
all not under the ban of the states, and I am told their prejudices 
are surprisingly abated, and there seems a disposition to forget past 

animosities and kindly receive all the fugitives. 

******* 

This day I went to the Treasury to inquire about my allowance, 
and to my comfort found it stood as at first. A few are raised, 
some struck off, more lessened. Of those that have come to my 
knowledge. Gov. Oliver's is lessened .£100, out of ^£300 ; Mr. 
Williams, who has married a fortune here, is struck off j Harrison 



368 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1783. 

Gray, with a wife and two children, struck off; his brother Lewis 
lessened to £50 ; D. Ingersoll reduced from ,£200 to XlOO ; Sam- 
uel H. Sparhawk from j£150 to jESO,- Benjamin Gridley from 
jei50 to jEIOO; Thomas Danforth's, Samuel Sewall's, Samuel 
Porter's, Peter Johonnot's, G. Brinley's, Edward Oxnard's and 
mine, continue as at first ; Chandler's raised .£50 ; Samuel Fitch's 
j£20 ; Col. Morrow's j£50 ; one whose name I forget is sunk from 
.£100 to £30 ; and many names and suras totally forgotten. On 
the whole, it is said the sum paid last year to refugees, amounting 
to near £80,000, is now shrunk by the late reform to £38,000 ; 
and if the commissioners act on the same frugal plan respecting the 
petitioners whose cases will probably soon be considered, I very 
much doubt whether the sum of last year's expenditure under this 
head, including all their additional allowances, will not exceed 
this year's. 

This is the great, the important day on which the prelimina- 
ries are to imdergo a most critical and severe discussion, and will 
determine the fate of Lord Shelburne's administration ; news un- 
luckily for it has arrived, that the government of Virginia has 
declared they will pay no regard to any remonstrance, or request, 
or requisition respecting refugees, which manifests the fatality of 
the preliminary article recommending the same. 

Your faithful friend, S. Curwen. 

Feb, 17. Mr. Flucker died suddenly in his bed yesterday morn- 
ing, and is the forty-fifth of the refugees from Massachusetts within 
ray knowledge, that have died in England. He was secretary of 
state for Massachusetts. 

Feb. 18. Mr. Deblois told me that Virginia had expressly de- 
clared they would not regard any remonstrance, requisition, or 
request of Congress respecting the loyalists of their province, as the 
fifth preliminary article between Great Britain and America stipu- 
lates : the fatality of which was visible enough before this proof. 
It is likely the rest of the states will copy so laudable an example, 
and exhibit thereby to the world a specimen of their power, want 
of virtue, moderation, and disregard to the principles of humanity. 
Shame to Great Britain that these unhappy persons stand in need 
of a recommendation promising such small efficacy — a striking les- 



17S3.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 369 

son to future generations never to support the reins of government 
against the determined resolution of a very numerous people. The 
House of Commons did not rise till seven o'clock this morning ; 
being engaged in debate on preliminary articles of peace, and pro- 
visional articles between Great Britain and America. The magni- 
tude and importance of the subject deeply employs the attention 
not only of the managers, but the public universally, who are all 
ears for the result. Lord Shelburne and administration are left in a 
minority by sixteen in the Commons. In the House of Lords strong 
opposition to the terms of peace. English pride cannot brook to 
receive the dictates of a conqueror. 

Feb. 19. Evening at Dr. Graham's lecture on health, in his 
" Temple of Health," in Pall Mall, near St. James's. The first room 
entered was properly a vestibule, from W'hence through folding 
doors one passes into the apartment holding the electric bed, about 
seven feet square, raised three feet from the floor ; over the frame 
at the head are fixed two balls gilded of four inches diameter and 
one inch apart, to receive the electric spark from the machine 
above, continued down in a glass tube through the floor. Passing 
this, you enter the room of Apollo, through a narrow entry, having 
on each hand two or three niches containing statues gilded, about 
half the natural size. The first object that meets the eye is the 
temple of Apollo, being a round cupola five feet in diameter, 
supported by six fluted pillars of the Corinthian order and eight 
feet high, in imitation of scagliola ; in the centre stands a tri- 
podal frame with concave sides, on which rests in each angle a 
lion couchant, supporting a long frame for the branch of six or 
eight lamps, adorned (or rather overcharged) with crystals, whose 
tremulous motion by the company's walking adds great brilliancy 
to the appearance, the walls all around having many branches 
with three candles each, besides two more large central branches, 
suspended by gilt chains from the ceiling. The decorations in the 
frippery kind are in great profusion in this as well as in the other 
room, consisting of glass in various forms and sizes, inlaid and 
hanging — many gilt statues of Apollo, Venus, Hercules, Escula- 
pius, etc., besides a few pictures. The master discovered a ready 
elocution, great medical knowledge, and appeared well qualified to 
support the character he assumes. 

47 



370 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1783. 

March 4. Called at G. Deblois's lodgings, and found that he 
sailed for Halifax on the 1st. Met Capt. Coombs, who informed 
me that Mr. Rowe at Treasury was drawing our pensions ; hast- 
ened and received my order. 

March 7. Government unsettled. Old administration out, no 
successors agreed on. Lord Gower has been solicited by the king 
to accept the premiership, or to be first lord of the treasury — the 
lord chancellor and Charles Jenkinson are of the interior cabinet. 
It is said the king has scarce eaten these two days, and is violently 
reluctant to take Charles J. Fox into his counsels ; and the party 
wherein he is engaged is by far the most powerful, to which Lord 
North has lately allied himself; to separate which has been the 
king's endeavor, but it seems without success. It is generally 
thought the king must at length yield. He will have to adopt the 
whole Rockingham party, or suffer the wheels of government to 
stop till Parliament remonstrate, which it soon must if the arrange- 
ment is not immediately made, all national business being at a 
stand. 

March 15. Administration not fully settled ; the king claim- 
ing the right of filling up vacancies in the cabinet in case of death 
or removal, and the new administration demanding to have none 
added but by their consent, that there may be no jarring among 
themselves ; and they will not act till this be settled. 

March 17. Visited Mr. Richard Clarke — thence to the Treas- 
ury to inquire when the commissioners were to meet again, and 
meeting Mr. Alleyn, a clerk, was informed about Mrs. Gen. Wins- 
low's* allowance ; finding a mistake had been made by Mr. Rowe 
to her prejudice, I proceeded to inform her brother Clark of it, and 
from thence to her own lodgings ; she being absent I returned, and 
stopping at her sister Deblois's, found her there, and rejoiced her 
heart by acquainting her that her allowance stood as at first grant- 
ed, and received her thanks. 

March 19. Walked to Park. Meeting Mr. Thomas Hutchin- 
son, joined and accompanied him to Hyde Park corner ; he ac- 
( uainted me that Col. Phips, who is just arrived, relates that, 
during his captivity at Boston he was civilly treated by all ranks^ 

* Lady of Gen. John Winslow of Marshfield, a refugee. 



1783.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 371 

and although obliged to reside at Cambridge, the state forbidding 
strangers a residence at Boston, he could easily obtain leave to visit 
there in the daytime. 

TO ANDREW DALGLISH, ESQ., GLASGOW. 

London, March 17, 1783. 
Dear Sir : 

My design herein is to give you my crude, and ask in return 
your better digested thoughts, on the present critical situation of 
Great Britain and the States of North America. However exult- 
ing they may feel in this first hour of their deliverance from British 
governmental authority, they have in my poor opinion an immeas- 
urable distance of road to travel over, intercepted with bogs, preci- 
pices, cloud-topped, scraggy mountains and deep valleys, before 
they will be able to arrive at an improvable chainpaign country, 
where ease, plenty and content are to be found : — in other words, 
that country abounds in lawless, ungovernable subjects, disposed, 
however, to imitate the vices, follies and luxurious fashions of 
wealthy states, with comparatively little running cash, immense 
debts, no funds established, and permanent and powerful creditors 
to account with. I was yesterday told by Mr. R. Clarke that 
Massachusetts was answerable for a yearly interest of twenty thou- 
sand sterling due for a loan. We are at this period in this country 
in a kind of anarchy ; no settled administration, the most import- 
ant national concerns neglected or delayed. 

The Rockingham party is, evidently, the most numerous, and 
therefore most powerful, and since the coalition between the man 
of prerogative and the man of the people, the latter, very justly so 
styled, can carry all before him. The great obstacle, however, to 
a full establishment of the cabinet is, it seems, whether the present 
lord chancellor and Lord Stormont shall be of it ; which the king 
insists upon, designing them, if he can prevail to bring them in, as 
checks on the rest, these two being professed abhorrers of the pres- 
ent designs of the embryo administration. The other point is the 
king's right to fill up vacancies that may happen by death or 
removal, which is refused him, saying they will have none but 
those in whom they can confide. If the king gains his point, af- 
fairs will go on in the old channel, and there will be no reform ; if 



372 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1783. 

he yields, he will scarcely be more than a doge of Venice, and the 
cabinet will rule and possess the whole power of the state. 

Respecting the public, it seems to be of no importance who is in 
or who is out ; all are in pursuit of one plan invariably to the neglect 
of the general welfare, or more properly at the expense of it. In 
this inter-reign Lord Shelburne sits and acts in the treasury, and Mr. 
Pitt as chancellor of the exchequer : — as to the character of the for- 
mer, though I profess no veneration for him, yet, as an active minister 
at the head of affairs, whether the public could, in this crisis, have 
been better served, is a doubt in my mind, notwithstanding the 
clamor raised by the newspaper writers. I fancy if you will read 
his speech of the 14th February, and that published in the Ad- 
vertiser of this day, you will see more reasons for the minister's 
justification than disappointed pride, private interest, personal dis- 
like and party rage will allow ; but when one reflects on the al- 
most universal cry of the nation for peace ; the act of the legislature 
last session, wherein the independence, the only bone of contention, 
was as good as given up, and the king almost commanded to put 
an end to the war in America ', the insupportable load of the na- 
tional debt, and without some capital reform, which in a time of 
war is utterly impracticable, will in the event prove so; the ruin- 
ous prospects from a decided superiority in the East and West 
Indies, which would have enabled our proud, revengeful enemies 
to require much more humiliating demands than the present terms ; 
one would think the nation should rather rejoice to have escaped 
so dreadful a catastrophe as a continuance most probably might 
have brought on, and be thankful our enemies v;ere inspired with 
such a moderate spirit. It is not to be conceived that proud, stub- 
born, successful enemies, just on the eve of obtaining the long wished 
object of their ambition, would be persuaded to relinquish all the 
advantages gained in war without any compensation. The great 
moderation of the French court under such advantageous circum- 
stances as they now confessedly are, was shown before parties ap- 
peared so prominent ; but Britons, unused to receive the law, cannot 
without hard struggles submit — time and cool reflection will clearly 
manifest the wisdom of the act of last session, and if that be ac- 
knowledged, the conduct of the late administration, meaning Lord 
Shelburne and his associates, must of consequence be approved. 



1783.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 373 

Before the preliminaries are ratified or hostilities ceased in the 
channel, an American ship laden with oil, with her thirteen stripes 
flying, came into the river from Nantucket by way of Ostend, and 
our London traders were but little less in a hurry ; for within a few 
days after the preliminaries were published, ten or twelve vessels 
were posted up in the coffee-houses, advertising for freights to 
New-York and Boston. Nor, indeed, does government seem much 
less precipitate, for a commercial treaty act is now under consider- 
ation of a committee of the whole house, and will probably in a 
few days be ready for the royal signature. The loyahsts have been 
for these two months very deeply engaged in forming plans to 
counterbalance the dreadful evils consequent on ministerial neglect 
in the late treaty. I can foresee no good to arise from their indus- 
try; on the contrary, apprehend mischief, and therefore dechne 
attending. 

What think you of returning to your late abode, Salem ? 
Should it be my lot, I shall wish for a few old acquaintances, 
without which the great revolutions in public and private, will, I 
apprehend, render my return not desirable. Please favor me with 
your undisguised sentiments freely on the foregoing, and whatever 
intelligence you may think proper. 

Very truly your friend, 

S. CURWEN. 

March 20. Attended the Royal Society's weekly meeting at 
Somerset House ; going into the antechamber common to the An- 
tiquarian Society and Royal Society, one waits until an acquaint- 
ance or friend appears to procure your name to be set down in the 
list, which is read aloud by an attendant at the president's order ; 
when the society, who are already met, are about to begin, each per- 
son regularly enters and takes his seat, (long slips being placed on 
either side a middle aisle.) At the head of the room sits the pres- 
ident, now Sir Joseph Banks, with his hat on his head, all others 
uncovered ; he in a chair of state elevated three or four steps ; just 
below it and on the same level with the floor is a half round ma- 
hogany table, having only two assessors, viz., the two secretaries. 
Dr. Matty, a person of profound knowledge and learning, but of a 



374 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1783. 

most diminutive, unpromising person, and a Mr. Grey, who read 
the communications to the society respecting experiments and any 
acquisitions of knowledge in astronomy, etc. Among others on 
this occasion was read a letter from the famous Herschel, lately in- 
vited from Bath to Windsor by the king, and for his use the round 
tower there is assigned : by his discoveries in astronomy it seems 
our solar system is travelling through the immensity of space in a 
progressive motion, w^hich he deduces from an apparent change of 
relative situation of some fixed stars most visible or of largest di- 
ameter, and therefore nearest to us. The election of members is 
"by ballot, each member putting in his vote into the box, presented 
to each separately, which being delivered into the president's 
hands, he empties out on the desk before him, and after counting, 
declares the candidate elected (or otherwise) a fellow of this soci- 
ety ; an instance I saw this night, and it is not a common sight. 
A candidate stands four months after proposed before balloted for. 
Dr. Cope, Bishop of Clonfert, being this night proposed, the presi- 
dent out of regard to his dignity as a peer of Ireland, dispensed 
with the usual forms and proceeded to a ballot, which was not ob- 
jected to. The assembly was in number to appearance scarce 
short of two hundred — the room a noble one, eighty feet by 
thirty, and twenty high ; the walls covered on all sides with half 
length and quarter portraits, arranged one above the other — Sir 
Isaac Newton's being at the head of the room in the centre of the 
middle space, and opposite the door. A person of modest assu- 
rance may push himself in amongst the company, few of the visit- 
ors being known, and no inquiry made on whose account one 
appears there. A friend engaged Dr. Fothergill to insert my name, 
which he entered by speaking to Dr. Matty, without entering his 
name. Every one who appears is presumed to have some relish 
for and acquaintance with some one or more of the branches of 
literature, etc., for that reason the society is not strict in examining 
their pretences to attend. The meeting begins at eight, and com- 
monly ends at ten — none spoke but the president, nor read but the 
secretaries. 

March 21. Met the king in a sedan chair, accompanied by ten 
or twelve yeomen and footmen, going to St. James's. New min- 



1783.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 375 

istry is said to have been settled ; Lord North, 'tis said, to return 
to pubhc hfe as a secretary of state. If so, probably at the king's 
earnest entreaty, otherwise it is hard to account for. 

March 24. To the reproach of the king and the nation, gov- 
ernment is without a ministry, notwithstanding the daily reports of 
an arrangement ; selfishness, venality, rapacity and dissipation are 
the characteristics of this age and nation ; to which must be added, 
in order to finish the picture, a total disregard of the idea of public 
welfare, which all men speculatively consider as a necessary, but as 
a crazy phantom, and therefore practically neglected. 

March 28. At the lobby of the House of Commons, which 
soon after meeting adjourned to Monday. Favored for the first 
time with a sight of young Pitt, that forward political plant; may 
he imitate his father as well in integrity and amor pafricB, as in 
oratorical ability and natural powers. Some think appearances 
promise a more abundant harvest ; should he continue in the 
national councils the public will be highly favored of heaven. 

March 29. At Treasury, informed by Mr. Rowe that Lord 
Shelburne had surrendered his seat as first lord. No ministry set- 
tled, nor to appearance is like to be soon ; the king unyielding, 
and the candidates as stiff and uncomplying. The old story of 
Lord Bute's pernicious influence prevails again ; there is some ad- 
vice unseen that supports the king's obstinacy, for I know not what 
else to call his non-compliance. 

March 30. At St. James's, in the gallery ', the king and queen 
passed through from the chapel to the green-room ; on leaving the 
antechamber I luckily, being small, crowded myself under the elbow 
of a good-natured yeoman, and in the front rank had a full view of 
the king, queen, prince of Wales, and the court train. On the 
other side of the yeoman stood a boy, who on the king's approach, 
bending one knee, presented a petition; the king took it without 
any further notice, and after walking a few steps, put it into the 
hand of the lord in waiting. Soon after I departed, leaving the 
gallery filling, and the passage under the piazzas in the court 
middle lined double on both sides, to have a sight of the company 
going up. 

March 3L Samuel Porter, Peter Frye and myself, visited Mr. 
Hughes at dinner and tea. 



376 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1783. 

^pril 2. Read a Boston newspaper, where I saw poor Coombs' 
estate in Marbleliead advertised for sale. I really pity ray poor 
fellow refugee, and think him cruelly treated by his savage towns- 
men. This day's paper announces administration settled : — 

Duke of Portland, First Lord of the Treasury. 

Lord John Cavendish, Chancellor of the Exchequer. 

Lord North and Charles J. Fox, Secretaries of State. 

Lord Stormont, President of the Council, 

Earl of Carlisle, Lord Privy Seal. 

Lord Keppel, first Lord of the Admiralty. 

Mr. Burke, Paymaster of the Forces. 

Colonel North, Treasurer of the Navy. 

^pril 5. Called at Mr. Tassey's to have a sight of the curious 
cabinet of satin wood, inlaid and decorated with many devices, 
figurative, etc., on front and sides : its contents, rows of drawers 
containing impressions of intaglios, cameos, seals, etc., to the num- 
ber of more than six thousand, duplicated, to be sent to the Empress 
of Russia by her express order, — value, several thousands ; she is 
a great encourager of ingenious artists, particularly English ones. 

Mpril 7. Passed a crowd attending procession in Parliament- 
street, going to take the Westminster candidate, Charles J. Fox, 
from his lodgings to the hustings under St. Paul's, Covent Garden 
portico. First marched musicians two and two, then four men sup- 
porting two red painted poles having on top the cap of liberty of 
a dark blue color; to each was fastened a light blue silk standard 
about nine feet long and five wide, having inscribed thereon in 
golden letters these words, " The Man of the People;" followed 
by the butchers with marrow-bones and cleavers ; then the com- 
mittee two and two, holding in their hands white wands ; in the 
rear the carriages. They stopped at his house in St. James's- 
street, where taking him up, he accompanied them in Mr. Byng's 
carriage through Pall Mall and the Strand to the hustings, when 
the election proceeded ; made without opposition, no competitor 
appearing against him. 

Mpril 13. Called on Mr. Jonathan Williams and Captain 
Johnson, and conducted them to Essex House chapel ; Mr. Lindsay 
preached ; — subject, the address of the gospel to the poorer and 
middling ranks, which shows both the wisdom and goodness of God. 



1783.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 377 

April 19. Met two numerous companies of sailors parading 
through the streets with an ancient ; told they were going to 
demand of the king their wages, having been discharged without 
payment ; but in returning through the Park could get no intelli- 
gence of their having made any demand at the Palace or Admiralty, 
and conclude they had been persuaded to separate on a promise of 
speedy payment ; a number yesterday having obtained the king's 
promise that the sailors should be relieved by the first instalment 
of the present loan to be made in a few days. 

May 13. Captain Coombs called early by agreement with me, 
and then departed to take coach for Kevv Bridge at nine o'clock ; 
arrived at eleven ; from thence on foot through Kew and the ter- 
race to Richmond, and through Twickenham to Hampton Court ; 
dined at King's Arms ; proceeded through the gardens to the 
palace, and passing through observed the paintings in better order 
than before ; was informed they were lately cleaned by the king's 
order, and some new ones brought from the queen's house and 
Kensington ; returned back through Bushy Park by a returned 
chaise. Was told that Kensington Palace may be seen as well as 
the others ; and also, that Hyde Park came to the crown by the 
Duchess of York, Lord Clarendon's daughter, the mother of queens 
Mary and Anne, and would in eight years revert back, unless the 
the king should obtain a new lease thereof. 

May 14. Went to Shoreditch work-house to see a Mr. Best, 
who is remarkable as a most perfect textuarian, and without 
looking in the Bible refers to particular texts, repeating the very 
words and all of them, to the number of many verses, often some- 
times apposite to the circumstances of the applier ; — seems not at 
a loss for any word or order in the text, and repeats slowly. He first 
looks into the right hand, pretending to a great knowledge of pal- 
mistry ; among other parts, he applied the 3d, 4th, and 5th verses 
of 30th Deuteronomy to me, being then a refugee from America 
in London. His language is only in Scripture phrases; his room, 
large in extent, is filled almost with work of his own, in straw, of 
Scripture stories — as the creation, flood, passage of the Israelites 
over the Red Sea, etc. ; — New Testament-^he nativity, baptism 
in Jordan, miracle of loaves and fishes, broad and narrow way, 
crucifixion, lying in the tomb, rising from the dead — called ascen- 

48 



378 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1783. 

sion — day of judgment, last trumpet sounding, etc. These are 
separate compartments made of straw, with divisions in the same 
style and materials ; he is continually, when not interrrupted by com- 
pany, at work in making small works of flowers, rings in imitation 
of large seal rings, one of which he put on my finger. By his 
ready apphcation and repeating the very words of Scripture, and 
the places where they are to be found, he seems to have got the 
whole Bible by heart ; after looking into my hand, he referred me 
to sundry texts, some of which I confess struck me with astonish- 
ment and confusion. Though not more than fifty-five years of age, 
he is so totally void of care respecting himself, that he must be put 
to bed and taken out, fed with meat and drink like an infant ; he 
W'ill not bear to be called Mr. nor thanked for his presents, — loves 
fruit, and will accept of it, but not money. The posture he receives 
his visitors in is sitting within his little straw cell ; looks on one 
only when he takes a hand to examine, and if he likes his visitor, 
on his departure seizes the hand in both his and kisses it warmly, 
bidding God speed in Scripture phrase. 

May 19. Went out accompanied by Mr. Pickman to Drury Lane 
play-house to see Mrs. Siddons, the favorite tragic actress of the 
public, in the character of Jane Shore, which she well supported. 

May 22. Informed that the refugees', or as they aifect to deno- 
minate themselves, loyalists', petition to Parliament is presented, 
and supported by Lord North and all in administration, that all 
who have pensions may receive them by their agents, go where 
they will, even if they shall return to either of the United States. 

June 15. Joseph Hooper called and drank tea ; gave him a 
certificate as he desired, though I fancy it will be of no effect, 
respecting his property, business, and manner of living ; of which, 
as I know, I can say but little. 

June 19. Walked to White Conduit House, to see a great 
cricket match played ; Lords Winchelsea, Easton, and Strathaven, 
and Sir Peter Burrill, etc. ; a very severe headache drove me off 
the field. 

June 30. Visited the artificial flower-garden at Spring Gar- 
dens ; a beautiful imitation, laid out in walks, containing in its 
borders a great variety of the most curious flowers and many spe- 
cies of wall fruit, with birds of the season and climate placed in 



1783.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 379 

natural attitudes on the boughs in good preservation ; having also 
a small piece of water, with a. jet d'eau in the centre, and a swan 
floating on its surface, besides a stream of water fallino- down a 
rugged precipice into a basin : the upper part of the sides covered 
with perspective views, which enliven the room, being of faint 
green ground, and eighty feet by fifty and twenty-five high, the top 
almost an entire skylight. 

July 9. At the gallery of the House of Lords ; Mr. Cooper, a 
counsellor at law, pleading at the bar in a case wherein the distillers 
were concerned ; on the third reading of bill, Lord Effingham 
rose and objected to various clauses, all of which were overruled, 
and the bill passed. A message from the Commons was received 
and read. In the former case, Lord Effingham called the first lord 
of the treasury, the Duke of Portland, who rose, and to my seem- 
ing acquitted himself very indifferently ; in his person he is un- 
pleasing in figure and countenance. Lord Effingham had the ap- 
pearance both in person and dress of a common country farmer ; a 
green frock coat, with brass buttons, his hair short, straight, and to 
appearance uncombed ; his face rough, vulgar and brown, as also 
his hand ; in short he had the look of a laboring farmer or grazier- 
There were three bishops and twenty-three lay lords present : re- 
mained there two hours. 

July IL At the bottom of Buckingham-street, on the bank of 
the river, is a very convenient stone alcove, where 1 met a foreigner, 
who proving communicatively inclined, I attended for near an hour 
to his relations ; the subject being the small degree of liberty this 
country enjoys compared with the states of Germany, particularly 
the king of Prussia's dominions, which he endeavored to exemplify 
from that monarch's readily redressing all acts of injustice from his 
courts, or from the oppressions of one subject to another. Another 
proof was the burdensome taxes of this country, to which the Ger- 
man states are not liable ; the demesnes of the princes, and other 
sources, furnishing them with an income independent of taxes. A 
third was the exorbitant fees and delays of justice in our courtsj 
which are just causes enough for complaint, crying aloud for re- 
dress ; which, alas! there is but little reason to hope for. 

July 12. By appointment, dined at Mr. De Berdt's, a brother 
of the late Mrs. Joseph Reed of Philadelphia ; about six o'clock, 



380 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1783. 

departed with Mrs. De Berdt in her chaise for their country house, 
in Wormly parish, on Sir Abraham Hume's land and manor, Herts ; 
passing through Shoreditch parish, Kingsland, Stoke Newington, 
Tottenham, High Cross, Edmonton, Pender's End, Enfield, Wal- 
thara Cross, Theobalds, and Cheshunt. Mr. De Berdt arrived soon 
after on horseback. 

July 13, Sunday. Attended worship at a meeting-house in 
Turnford in the morning ; in the afternoon at the parish church, 
standing on Sir Abraham's ground, who is the presentee thereof; 
a miserable, dark, old, forsaken temple, seemingly in a state of dere- 
liction, though its revenues are far from contemptible, amounting to 
j£200 and more ; its present incumbent is a D. D. Accompanied 
my friends to the christening of a daughter and churching of the 
mother ; after service partook of tea and christening cake. 

July 14. Set oif through Lord Monson's grounds for Mr. 
Hughes' at Hoddesdon ; arrived in an hour, and passed another hour 
with him ; then returned and rode with Mr. and Mrs. De Berdt 
over the Lea and New rivers into Essex, along the meadows; 
leaving there, we entered a rough, lonesome road that continued 
to the top of a very long hill of quick ascent. On the summit 
stands Roydon, from whence forward both lands and road had a 
very different appearance; passed Stansteadbury church, standing 
on the edoe of the eminence, and half a mile distant from the town 
or any house, except one gentleman's seat in its neighborhood, 
overlooking the extensive field called the Ryehouse field, perhaps 
from the grain of that kind for which it is noted. Descending into 
the plain, stretching for a mile or two on either hand, we passed 
the house well known in the history of Charles IL, for the real or 
imaginary plot against government laid there ; and also the two 
rivers. New and Lea, running scarce more than ten rods asunder, 
through the whole length of the plain, and parallel to each other ; 
at ten o'clock arrived home. 

July 21. Wrote to Thomas Russell, Esq., Boston, and intro- 
duced Mr. Coap. 



1783.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 381 

TO WILLIAM PYNCHON, ESQ., SALEM, N. E. 

London, July 26, 1783. 
Dear Sir : 

The raging fever of the times will doubtless abate, for no vio- 
lent fermentations are lasting, but not perhaps till the purposes of 
raising it are answered. The political frenzy of your country, and 
the peculiarly critical situation of American refugees here, put it 
out of my power to be decided respecting my future destination. 
However, as I wrote Mr. Ward, age and infirmities have made 
such inroads on me, as render of little importance the public deci- 
sions here or there. I ardently wish and pray for the welfare of 
both countries ; but to whisper a truth in your ear, I should not 
entertain a single thought of crossing the Atlantic at my advanced 
time of life, even under the pleasing prospect of a friendly and 
kind reception, was it not for the short enjoyment of my friends 
and acquaintance ; much less is the thought pleasing with such 
prospects as must present themselves to those misguided, unfortunate 
persons, who retired from America to Europe and elsewhere in the 
beginning and during the late troubles. 1 strongly suspect America 
will not find such a cordial and unrestricted liberty from the Euro- 
pean powers respecting commerce and the creation of a powerful 
navy, as she fondly and delusively imagined. Now the hurry of 
war is over, men's minds are more at leisure to view the importance 
of keeping within proper bounds the new rising states, of such 
vast extent of sea coast, such variety of soils, such capability of im- 
proving its native materials, and which, if suffered, will grow to a 
dangerous height. 

Please present my kind respects to friends and acquaintance, 
and believe me 

Your friend, 

S. Cur WEN. 

Jidy 27. To the Tower, and encompassing it once round on 
the ramparts, left it, and passing over Little Tower-hill, joined a 
company attending a field speaker ; one in the outer ring proved 
boisterous and severe, but the preacher was too much engaged to 
attend to the noise that disturbed most in that quarter. 



382 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1783. 

July 29. Called on Mr. and Mrs. Mather ; afterwards William 
Vans called ; I took a stroll with him and tea at Bagnigge Wells ; 
thence home by way of Peerless-pool and Moorfields. 

TO GEORGE RUSSELL, ESQ., BIRMINGHAM. 

London, July 20, 1783. 
Dear Sir : 

Your kind wishes I read with heartfelt satisfaction, for I meet 
with very few who profess the slightest regard ; on this subject I 
could enlarge, but my feelings would urge to a style prudence for- 
bids me to use. You express yourself as one not callous to impres- 
sions of humanity, as interest and passion render too many ; " that 
when the horrors of war cease, there should end all animosities." 
I wished and hoped it too, but with what success the world too 
evidently sees ; not a single expectation of mine through the pro- 
gress of this baneful war but has ended in disappointment. To 
keep myself from all future mortifications, I am determined to take 
no further part or concern in public measures, than what arises 
from unavoidable constraint by personal interest ; and considering 
the sour aspect of American pohtics respecting absentees, I cannot 
but think my plan an obvious dictate of wisdom. Local attach- 
ment having lost its force in me, and so averse as I am to a tedious 
voyage, that could I persuade a few friends that it was not for want 
of a due regard, I know not whether, at this advanced time of life, 
I should not retire to some quiet village, and there pass in undis- 
turbed ease, unknowing and unknown, the short portion of my 
remaining days. Perhaps, at your time of life it is hard to conceive 
the propriety of the foregoing intimation ; but you will remember 
old ao-e blunts the passions as well as the reason, and renders rigid 
and stiff the finer fibres of the brain, those vehicles of animal spirit, 
by means of which impressions of all kinds are less frequent and 
strong. 

You very justly observe, that the true state of the case is not 
always to be known from newspaper representation, and I can add, 
scarce ever even when public instruments are pretendedly copied. 
However, in the present case, I fancy you may, without injury 
to truth, believe the resolves from the town of Worcester to be 
genuine ; nor less those very curious ones from the New Jerseys, in 



1783.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 383 

the Morning Chronicle of the 26th inst., (if I have not mistaken a 
day or two,) wherein you will see the predicament of us poor re- 
fugees in the opinion of our late fellow-subjects ; but party zeal is 
blindness as well as madness. Both the foregoing as well as others 
of like import, I have seen in my own town newspaper, called the 
Salem Gazette, nor does it want confirmation from verbal testimony, 
and a multitude of letters from friends and foes corroborate the same. 
Your wish and expectation that the present delirium, as I call it, will 
not be lasting, is common ; it is in all men's mouths ; its con- 
tinuance will, I dare say, be of fatal length to me, as well as in its 
operation. 

To show on what footing I stood before the news of peace had 
intoxicated them, take the following extracts. In one letter, dated 
2d January last, from a worthy friend and correspondent, he says : 
— " It is the general desire that you be urged to return, with assur- 
ances that you will be joyfully and respectfully received, and may 
reside here in peace and safety." Another writes : — " Your friends 
and acquaintance ardently wish for your return, and continuance 
among us in peace and security all your days." 

The ship Captain, (Holton Johnson of Lynn,) with whom I 
came from America, was, by a revolution common at such periods, 
translated into a legislator in our Massachusetts Assembly ; being 
about two months since in London, told me that had not his interest 
and efforts prevailed, my name would have been inserted in the 
banishment list, and my estate confiscated. The reality of this fact 
depends on the relator's veracity ; the reasons, if any, must be 
private pique and malice ; no public crime was ever alleged, but 
merely leaving the country in her distress. If success is justification, 
I confess guilt. 

A subsequent letter of 12th May, says : — " It seems clear to 
your best friends that your caution was not groundless." In one 
of June 5th : — " Since plundering and privateering have declined 
the reverend Dr. Whitaker exerts himself on the wharves as well 
as in the desk against the return of Americans ; let your patience 
and fortitude continue a month or two longer, and I believe that 
you may safely leave faction and party rage to spend their utmost 
spite without harm." In one of 14th June, from the same :— 
" Mrs. P. hath been at Providence, etc., and finds that Rhode 



384 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1783. 

Island and Connecticut are surprised at the conduct of Massa- 
chusetts, as to the return of absentees who have not been inimical 
to America. That Mr. Sparhawk and others, who went thither 
from New-York and other places, were treated with great humanity 
and respect; that they encourage the return of Americans. These 
and other occurrences considered, I doubt not of seeing an alter- 
ation of measures before the end of the present session of the 
Assembly ; I trust we shall not long continue to drive our own 
people into other states." 

The Dr. Whitaker before mentioned, of Salem, is a notorious 
character in America, and not unknown here, whose employment 
some years ago was that of an itinerant preacher, leading about a 
tawny native of America for people to look at, and hear his preach- 
ment ; he was also at the same time engaged in the more profitable 
pursuit of soliciting charity for the establishment of an Indian col- 
lege in the frontier wilderness of my country. He is usually called 
Dr. Meroz in America, from his constantly applying the 23d verse 
of the 5th chapter of Judges to the poor refugees. 

I am far from wishing ill to the cause of liberty, much less to that 
of my native country, to which on the contrary, as a citizen of the 
world and a friend to the inalienable rights of mankind, I wish every 
kind of good, but am equally far from thinking America has gained 
its delusively fancied prize by independence. By some congress- 
ional manoeuvres of late, a train I fear is laid for the establishment 
of a power much more fatal to liberty than Great Britain durst have 
aimed at, whilst she could have retained any governmental autho- 
rity there. Their liberation is a doubtful proof of the divine ap- 
probation of their cause. Many there thirsted after it, and so did 
the Israelites for a king, which God at length gave them, in his 
anger : and he has, I fear, given them their heart's desire by way of 
punishment for wantoning away those singularly great advantages 
of a civil, religious and political nature, with which he had favored 
them above all people upon the face of the whole earth. They 
often were used to compare themselves to God's highly favored peo- 
ple, and I truly think their case is not unlike ; mercies and preserva- 
tions as numerous, nor does their folly and ingratitude fail to finish 
the comparison. If any expressions here are not altogether of the 
complexion of your own notions, I know your candor will make 



1783.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 386 

allowances for the difference of our situation, though I am not aware 
of an unfriendly bias in my mind. 

Your faithful friend, 

S. CURWEN. 

August 6. At New England Coffee-house to read the papers, 
filled with relations of the rising spirit of Americans against the 
refugees, in their towns and assemblies. Intoxicated by success, 
under no fear of punishment, they give an unrestrained loose to 
their angry, malevolent passions, attribute to the worst of causes 
the opposition to their licentious, mobbish violation of all laws, hu- 
man and divine ; and even some of the best of the republican party 
seem to think, at least their practice squints that w^ay, that the sup- 
posed goodness of their cause will justify murder, rapine, and the 
worst of crimes. But cool impartial posterity will pass a better 
judgment, and account for the violences of the times from party rage, 
which knows no bounds. 

' TO MR. JOHN TIMMINS, WOLVERHAMPTON. 

London, August 9, 1783. 
Dear Sir : 

By the newspapers from America, particularly our quarter, I 
find there remain but slender grounds of hope for success in at- 
tempting the recovery of debts or estates ; a general shipwreck is 
seemingly intended of all absentees' property — the towns in their in- 
structions to the representatives making it a point to prevent the 
return of them, and consequent confiscation of all their property, 
notwithstanding the provision in the fifth preliminary article. These 
lawless people regard not any obstacle when the gratification of their 
angry passions or the object of gain is in view ; — some of their re- 
solves perhaps you may have seen. I yesterday read in a Boston 
Gazette, published (in June) by Edes, the well known sedition- 
trumpeter, the following copied out for your view from the resolves 
of the town of Lexington, of the same complexion with the rest of 
their town meeting measures : "Common sense and the laws of nature 
and nations concur to pronounce them one and all ahens from the 
commonwealth. As to the idea of admitting some and rejecting oth- 
ers, it is easy to see that the wisdom of angels would be puzzled to 

49 



386 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1783. 

draw a line — to determine when or where to stop. Upon th6 whole 
we cannot but think it indispensably necessary for the peace and 
welfare of this state, and the freedom and happiness of the United 
States, that a decided part be taken to prevent the return and the 
recovery of their estates, and property that was formerly theirs." — 
Though in this you see the temper is unfriendly and adverse, the 
language is decent. From a paragraph of to-day's paper is the fol- 
lowing : " Letters by an American vessel yesterday from Boston 
brought certain information of a very unfavorable nature to the 
loyalists, whose situation is extremely precarious, and no step is 
likely to be taken for their relief." The same letters add, that 
" several parts of the country are in a state of convulsion, in a strug- 
gle to get repossessed of estates seized by individuals during the 
troubles." Sitting by Frederick Geyer in the N. E. Coffee-house, he 
said that John Amory had written him that he was made to hope by 
his friends for a readmission into Boston, having already been per- 
mitted to have a sight of his children, &c. He had received letters 
by Callahan from Boston, by whom thirteen passengers have just 
arrived ; among them are Leonard Jarvis, Samuel Eliot, and a Mr. 
Seaver. 

I suppose you have heard of Capt. Smith's treatment at Phila- 
delphia. Such, however, is the course of human affairs, and it may 
be, for aught 1 know of, consummate wisdom and a just retribution 
of rewards and punishments ; for I am far from thinking there is 
such a very great disproportion of happiness here below among 
individuals, as is the common opinion, or that external circumstan- 
ces are of any weight in the question of the quantity of human 
happiness of each one individual compared to another. In a little 
space of time I shall be dead to a sense of all these puzzling 
events ; it may be, shall see the reasonableness and equity of the 
providential government in a clear and satisfactory light. 

Heartily wishing you health, success, competency and content- 
ment, I am, with cordial esteem. 

Your friend, 

S, CURWEN. 

Aug. 12. P. S".— The London Evening Chronicle of this day 
contains a sensible and excellent circular letter from General 
Washington to the several state governors ; the forementioned di- 



1783.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 387 

reeled to Governor Greene, of Rhode Island. If you have not seen 
it, the liberality of that government absolves this from all imputa- 
tions on the score of tolerating the Roman Catholics in Canada — 
they having far outgone these by admitting persons of all faiths as 
■well as none to a full participation, not only of the liberty of living 
and exercising their religion among them, but to all the immunities, 
rights, privileges, emoluments, and honors of the state. This is, I 
confess, carrying toleration to the very largest extent. S. C. 

TO RICHARD WARD, ESQ., SALEM. 

London, August 11, 1783. 

Dear Sir : 

I refer you to my letter by Mr. Conant for an explicit answer 
to your question, " Do you propose to spend the remainder of your 
days abroad 1" though I do not think my expression, " The wished 
for period of my return is not arrived," carried any doubts of what 
were my intentions. With regard to that event, you best can tell 
whether I or any exile from America, whatever our wishes may 
be, shall ever be suffered to make an attempt; a subject I consider 
with some indifference, age and infirmities having made such in- 
roads on my constitution as leave me but little to hope or fear from 
the result of public councils or the imprudence of private conduct. 
So far, however, am I from indifference to the real welfare of 
America, that I ardently wish moderate counsels may prevail, for it 
is the universal opinion that her credit and interest will be essen- 
tially hurt, should an illiberal, impolitic exclusion of all absentees 
take place. I am free to declare my apprehension that the lower, 
illiterate classes, narrow-minded and illiberal all over the world, 
have too much influence, and that political and civil events bear 
some proportion to the wisdom of public councils ; not always, as 
instances of a contrary kind may be adduced through a succession 
of many ages in the history of mankind. 

Please to acquaint the " Social Library" company, whatever 
occasions they may have for a supply from hence, they shall be 
freely welcome to my services. With best love to my niece and 
your children, 

I am your friend, 

S. CURWEN. 



388 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1783. 

Aug. Y7. Attended public worship at St. Giles's, Cripplegate. 
The number of youthful voices accompanying the organ rendered 
that part of the service pleasing and devout. After service 
walked to the altar to see the funeral monument of a woman 
rising out of a coffin ; the inscription too high for me to read, but 
said to perpetuate the extraordinary event of a woman of this 
parish being brought to life after interment, by the sexton's de- 
scending into the vault to cut off from her fingers some rings, 
which by swelling could not otherwise be recovered. Report adds, 
that raising herself in the coffin, she quitted it and followed the 
sexton out of the church, and proceeded homewards, and arriving 
there at midnight and knocking hard at the door, awakened the 
maid, who went trembling to her master, saying she was sure the 
knock was that of her mistress ; on going down and opening the 
door, to their astonishment found it to be her mistress indeed. 
Report further adds, that this same woman lived to have seven or 
eight children. On asking the female pew-opener, she replied : 
" That is the report, but having been but a late parishioner, she 
could not say, but some thought it meant to denote the resurrection 
of the body." Below is the bust of the famous martyrologist 
" Johannes Foxus,'" put up by his son Samuel about 1590. 

Jlug. 31. Attended worship at the church of St. Austin and 
St. Faith the Virgin, united parishes close under St. Paul's, and 
the latter so called as I was informed on inquiry at St. Paul's of 
the verger ; he further said that it was in the gift of the dean and 
chapter. A Mr. Ryder, author of a history of England, preached 
an ingenious and entertaining discourse. Afternoon at the Magda- 
len, where heard an excellent, pathetic, and finely adapted address 
to the tenants by Mr. Sellon, minister of Clerkenwell, one of the 
justly celebrated preachers of the day. 

Sept. 3. Mr. Foster, the late appointed clerk to commissioners 
for examining loyahsts, advertises to-day for them to bring in an 
estimate of their estates, effects, losses, etc., to him at his chambers, 
Middle Temple, before the 29th inst. 

Sept. 19. Yesterday evening received a note from Mr. De Berdt, 
inviting me to accompany Mrs. D. to his country house at Brox- 
burn Herts to pass a few days during his absence in Wiltshire, 
where, after three hours, we arrived in Mrs. D.'s chaise before tea. 



1783.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 389 

Sejpt. 23. At twelve o'clock set off with Mrs. D. for Ware, 
through Hoddesdon, Ryefields, Stansfield, Mardock Mill, the late 
residence of Mr. De Berdt. 

Sept. 25. To Hoddesdon ; meeting Mr. James Inman and 
another gentleman, accompanied the former home. 

Sept. 26. Proceeded with Mrs. De Berdt Londonwards, meeting 
and overtaking multitudes in carriages and on foot, bound to the 
Waltham Abbey-statute for servants — a day established by act of 
Parliament, following the last day of Fairs, for hiring servants. 
The males appear with the tools or insignia of their respective em- 
ployments; the females of the domestic kind are distinguished by 
their aprons, viz., cooks in colored, nursery-maids in white linen, 
and the chamber and waiting-maids in lawn or cambric. Here 
resort all who want to go into, or are out of service, as well as 
those families who stand in need of servants. After a few delays 
and the interval of three hours, arrived in London, passing through 
Clapton and Hackney, deviating from the usual road for variety 
sake. 

Sept. 29. Visited Mrs, Hay ; first time since her return from 
Scotland. At New England Coffee-house, saw a number of young 
Massachusetts men bound home in Callahan, gone down the river. 
In Oxford-street, called at Mr. Danforth's and S. Porter's; both 
absent. 

Oct. 4. At ten o'clock, set off with Mr. D. in a post-chaise for 
Lord Tylney's seat, Epping Forest ; conducted through the rooms 
and from them to the grotto, which, in my opinion, is the most 
pleasing and elegant I ever saw ; though Goldney's at Clevedon 
is by some esteemed before this ; and which, perhaps, in the rich- 
ness of some of its spars may exceed. 

Oct. 6. This day was proclaimed peace with France, Spain, 
and Holland, with the usual formalities, at Palace, Charing 
Cross, Cheapside Conduit, and the Royal Exchange ; had a sight 
of the procession in Pall Mall, but the crowds disappointed me 
from hearing the proclamation, or seeing the ceremony of admis- 
sion through Temple-bar into the city. 

Oct. 8. At New England Coffee-house in company with Mr. 
Nathaniel Gorham, lately arrived from Boston, whom I had well 
known. He is a native of Charlestown, late a member of Congress, 



390 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1783. 

and of the Massachusetts Assembly, and who is now here on the 
score of obtaining a benevolence for the sufferers at the destruction 
of that town, June 17, 1775, by the king's troops; which, all things 
considered, carries with it such a face of effrontery as is not to be 
matched. Invited him to tea ; received a letter from my wife's 
brother, James Russell. 

TO HON. JAMES RUSSELL, LINCOLN, MASS. 

London, Oct. 8, 1783. 
My Dear Sir : 

I thank you for your favor of the 21st August, the first from 
you since my unhappy abandoning my former home in April, '75. 
You write, " I give you joy on the return of peace ;" as far as it 
shall be productive of real good to the parties concerned, it has my 
approbation ; respecting myself it is an event of the smallest 
moment, were the appearances in your quarter ever so bright and 
pleasing ; how much less when the thirteen late peaceable happy 
colonies are reduced to the licentious and gloomy condition wherein 
they now are, if general report may be depended on. In truth, 
were your sister* no more, there would need no act of Massachusetts 
or any other assembly, or senate, to prohibit my return. So far as 
to America and myself ; now to another point, that of interest. 
After I had written to your son Thomas of Boston on the subject, 
I had heard of the sale of your late son Charles's estate at Lincoln 
to your son Chambers ; I will presume you did not forget my 
demand of ^300 sterling, and somewhat more for his bond to me, 
though your silence respecting it has since raised my apprehension. 
Mr. Thomas Russell will address you on this subject, and I trust 
sufficient will be received to remunerate him for monies obtained 
on his credit by me for my support soon after my arrival here. 
Wishing you and your family every good, 
I remain, my dear sir. 

Your affectionate brother, 

S. CURWEN. 

Oct. 9. Received a note from Mr. De Berdt, inviting me to 
dinner on Friday with Mr. Gorharn and Mr. Barrett of Boston. 

* Mrs. Curwen. 



1783.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 391 

Oct. 25. Accompanied Mr. Gorham to House of Commons 
and Westminster Abbey. 

Oct. 28. Saw Captain Nathaniel West and Captain Smith for 
the first time ; received information from the former that his brother 
Eben was living, (whom I feared was dead,) and about to return 
to Salem. 

Oct. 29. Mr. J. Fletcher drank tea with me, and related in 
detail his misfortunes, present condition and views. 

TO MRS. ABIGAIL CURWEN, SALEM. 

London, Oct. 30, 1783. 

My Dear Wife : 

The peace, or rather acknowledged dismemberment of the late 
English colonies from their mother country, has, it seems, been so 
far from affording a prospect to such of the American absentees 
who might be willing to return back, that, on the contrary, from 
what appears, the present governing party are determined to pass 
bills of final exclusion of all such as left their country after the 
troubles commenced. If their government is in the hands of what 
their great and good allies call the " mesne peuple" which two 
short words you have Anglo-Gallic friends enough among you to 
translate, no liberal public measures are to be expected. If it was 
not for your sake, or that you would follow ray fortune or accom- 
pany my fate, I should not hesitate for a moment taking up my 
future abode, which cannot possibly be but of short continuance, 
somewhere out of the limits of the republican government. " The 
world," as Adam said on his expulsion from paradise, " is all 
before me, where to choose my place of rest, and Providence my 
guide." By this you see, I have not fixed my views ; nor can I, 
prudently, till your government shall have come to a final deter- 
mination respecting your runaways, or, as they affect to call them- 
selves by the pompous character o( loyalists ; which, however, does 
them no more credit here than with you. Wishes for the welfare 
of my friends still warm my heart ; as to the rest, I read with cold 
indifference the insurrections in Pennsylvania, and the carryings-on 
in the late English colonies, having lost local attachment. 

If your fortitude has increased in the proportion that your 
health and spirits have improved, perhaps you will not find it an 



392 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1783. 

insurmountable difficulty to resolve on a land tour to Canada, or a 
voyage to some other English settlement. Whatever shall be the 
result of your thoughts, let me be made acquainted therewith as 
soon as convenient. Should a final expulsion be concluded on, 
you will no longer hesitate. 

Mr. Jay and John Adams are here, and if administration was 
kindly affected towards American sufferers, perhaps some good 
might arise ; though for my own particular case, I have no favor- 
able opinion of the gratitude, or even justice, of kings or courts ; 
nor of the friendly regards of the two forementioned Americans 
towards us in the unhappy predicament of petitioners for the bounty, 
not to say justice, of the court ; from the latter, [Adams,] it is cur- 
rently said and believed, harsh declarations have fallen here as well 
as in Holland and France respecting us, nor has he probably 
chano-ed his mind. The ancients say, " Qui trans mare currunt, 
ccelum non animum mutant.^'* 

Of a different complexion and temper is Mr. Nathaniel Gorham, 
with whom I have had several interviews ; he is moderate, reason- 
able, and conciliatory ; would that his views prevailed among his 
countrymen. He has just informed me that on the 4th proximo, 
agreeably to Charles J. Fox's appointment, he was going to wait 
■upon Lord Keppel ; if a member of the American Continental 
Congress can lower himself to use the derogatory term of waiting 
on the first lord of the English admiralty. 

Yours^ in all affection, 

S. CURWEN. 

Jfov. 5. Last night a very destructive fire consumed many 
houses, upwards of forty, between Aldersgate, Bartholomew Close, 
and Cloth Fair, supposed the most extensive in London for many 
years ; the fire yet unextinguished j no account yet given of the 
damage, loss, etc. 

JVov. 24. At the American commissioner's office, late Duke 
of Newcastle's house, Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, for directions respecting 
•Q. memorial. 

JVov. 25. Attended among the rest of expectants to have a 

* Those who cross the seas, change their abode but not their minds." 



1783,] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 393 

sight of the air-balloon discharged from the Artillery-ground, at one 
o'clock ; it rose moderately, and in a southerly direction ; was in 
sight ten or twelve minutes ; its appearance to my eye, after it 
diminished to four or five inches in diameter, was like three round 
balls in contact, in shape of a triangular body with obtuse angles. 
I should think the numbers in Moorfields exceeded fourscore thou- 
sand. The sight was amusing ; perhaps posterity may improve on 
this newly investigated subject, and make what is now only a 
pleasing show, a commodious, perhaps pernicious, aerial convey- 
ance. 

JVov. 28. Capt. Carpenter, of Salem, called ; he is just from 
Lisbon. 

TO WILLIAM PYNCHON, ESQ. 

London, Mv. 28, 1783. 
Dear Sir : 

However unfavorable to my wishes the result of the American 
Assemblies may be, I shall be gratified by receiving the earliest 
advices. Capt. Nathaniel West brings me a message from the 
principal merchants and citizens of Salem, proposing and encour- 
aging my return; which instance of moderation I view as an honor 
to the town and respectful to myself, and I wish to return my 
thanks through you. It affords me pleasure, and I would cheer- 
fully accept the offer ; but should the popular dislike rise against 
me, especially if co-operating with governmental resolves, to what 
a plight should I be reduced, being at present (but for how long 
is a painful uncertainty) on the British government list for jEIOO 
a year, (a competency for a single person exercising strict economy,) 
to surrender this precarious allowance without public assurances 
of personal security. 

It would be little short of madness, should the popular rage com- 
bine with the public decisions to prevent our future residence ; de- 
prived of all assistance, and even the last refuge of the wretched, 
hope here, expelled there. Imagine to yourself the distress of an 
old man, without health, under such adverse circumstances, and 
you will advise me to wait with resignation till the several Assem- 
blies shall have taken decisive measures on congressional recom- 
mendation, agreeably to the provisional treaty, if that body shall 

50 



394 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1783. 

deem it prudent to conform to what their commissioners have agreed 
to. But enough of this. One of your Massachusetts pubHc min- 
isters, Mr. John Adams, is here in all the pride of American inde- 
pendence; by Mr. Gorham I am told he uttered to him the follow- 
ing speech, that " together with the war he had buried all animosity 
against the absentees." Though he is of a rigid temper, and a 
thorough-paced republican, candor obliges me to give him credit 
for the humanity of the sentiment, being spoken in private, and to 
one of his own party, and probably without an intention to be pub- 
lished abroad. In a conversation w^ith my informant, he further 
replied, that he chose to consider himself as a plain American 
republican ; his garb plain, without a sword, which is carrying his 
transatlantic ideas, I fear, a little too far. Should he have the cu- 
riosity, or his public character render it expedient, to attend at a 
royal levee, or at a drawing-room at St. James's on a court day, I 
hope he will not deserve and meet with as mortifying a repulse as 
our late chancellor, Lord Thurlow, at the court of Versailles ; whose 
surly pertinacity in wearing a bob-Avig occasioned his being re- 
fused admittance into the king's presence. However frivolous a 
part of dress soever a sword may appear to one of Mr. Adams's 
scholar-like turn, he is by this time, I fancy, too well acquainted 
with the etiquette of courts to neglect so necessary an appendage, 
without which no one can find admittance out of the clerical line. 
I have nothing further to add but my ardent wishes for an in- 
crease of the health and happiness of yourself and family ; for I 
am very truly, 

Your friend, 

S. CURWEN. 

JYov. 30. Attended worship at the chapel in Margaret-street, 
Cavendish-square, where Mr. Ford, from Liverpool, officiated, using 
the liturgy appointed for the dissenters on the plan of preconceived 
forms in that place ; it being the first use of it in London. 

Dec. 2. Mr. Gorham passed three hours with me. 

Dec. 5. Evening at Covent Garden Theatre, to see old Mack- 
lin in the characters of Shylock in the Merchant of Venice, and in 
Sir Archy McSarcasm in Marriage a la Mode, a farce of his own 
writing ; in both he excels, and although more than fourscore years 



1783.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 395 

of age manifests an exertion that would credit even youth. The 
house crowded ; the character of Portia, in the former, performed 
by a Miss Roscoe, her first appearance. 

Dec. 18. Yesterday Charles J. Fox's famous East India bill was 
on a second reading thrown out of the House of Lords, by a ma- 
jority of nineteen, the vote being seventy-eight in favor, and ninety- 
seven against it. The Prince of Wales in the minority, being his 
first vote as one of that house. 

Dec. 20. House of Commons in an uproar, occasioned by a 
supposed design to dissolve them and form a new arrangement of 
administration ; the members of which, one of the papers has, as 
usual in extraordinary cases, presented the public with. 

Dec. 28. Attended public worship at Essex House chapel. 
Mr. Lindsay preached from — " For we know that if the earthly 
house of this our tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of 
God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens ; for in 
this we groan earnestly, desiring to be clothed upon with our house 
which is in heaven. If so be that being clothed, we shall not be 
found naked." A text and discourse not unsuited to my particular 
situation, this day completing my sixty- eighth year, and in a dis- 
consolate condition, laboring under bodily infirmities, dreadful un- 
certainties respecting my temporal supplies, and but too conscious 
of many more imperfections and follies, moral and natural ; how- 
ever doubtful what may be the consequence of a separation of soul 
and body, I most ardently long for a deliverance from personal 
evils, and a retreat to that state of quietude where the weary are at 
rest. 

Dec. 31. Visited Mr. De Berdt by invitation ; from thence to 
Capt. Hay's, and engaged to dine there next Friday. 

This concludes a most unpleasing, unprofitable year, meaning 
in such a sense as dignifies the rational nature of mortal men. 
May the following year be productive of better moral effects than 
the last. 



396 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1784. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

London, Jan. 17, 1784. At New England CofTee-house, recog- 
nised by Col. Tonge, whom at first sight I knew not, till he made 
himself known. 

Jan. 24. Last night Mr. Pitt's East India bill lost by a ma- 
jority of eight; probably a dissolution of Parliament will follow. 
A wretched plight is this distracted nation in, from an obstinate, 
despotically inclined king, and a set of profligate, unprincipled men 
of influence and politicians, I fear there is not sense enough left 
of the importance of public interest and liberty among the people, 
to oppose the pernicious designs and measures of court and Parlia- 
ment, and that the people, from whose efforts alone good may be 
expected, however unaided by nobles or gentry, will soon, oppressed 
and overloaded by taxes, submit to any measures their haughty im- 
perious masters shall impose. Thus the government, once the 
boast of Great Britain and the envy of the world, will soon find 
itself on a level with the most contemptible of those nations on 
■whom it justly looked with pity, and imprudently with contempt. 
I think its ruin near enough for my old age to have the cruel mor- 
tification of seeing, brought about by the most impolitic and foolish 
of all attempts, the late American war ; and in the short space 
of nine years fallen, when at the highest pinnacle of power, glory, 
and wealth it had ever attained, to its present state of despair. 

Feb. 2. Disturbed by disagreeable dreams from whatever 
cause, which, however, I pretend not satisfactorily to account for 
to myself; I find my imagination much more busily employed now 
than in my youth. 

Feb. 3. Joseph Hooper called on me to accompany him to the 
American Commissioner's oflftce in Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, which I did, 
and gave a relation on oath, which proved my unacquaintedness 
with his affairs of no advantage to his cause. Afterwards at New^ 
England Coffee-house, reading the papers, filled with melancholy 
accounts of the party squabbles in the House of Commons between 
Foxites and Pittites, the former of whom have got a majority to 



1784.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 397 

address the king to turn out the latter and his associates, which has 
produced such a chagrin in the king's mind, it is said, as has deter- 
mined him to retire to Hanover, and leave this distracted country 
under the government of guardians of the realm, of which his son, 
the Prince of Wales will be first in the commission. 

Feb. 9. The extreme severity of the weather seems to ill-in- 
fluence the tempers of the state managers, whose pertinacious 
obstinacy forebodes, by their struggles in the House of Commons and 
their opposition in the House of Lords, to brirg on a state convul- 
sion. Should healing measures not soon be adopted, and the meet- 
ing bill run out, the army will of course be left without restraint, 
and the dogs of war be let loose ; the consequence all have rea- 
son to dread, none fully foresee. 

Feb. 13. The two political game-cocks, Pitt and Fox, are at 
length to compromise, and the public business, for a while at least, 
be suffered to go on, which during the contests between the House 
of Commons on the one side, and the king supported by the House 
of Lords on the other, has stagnated, to the great reproach of the 
contenders, and injury of the public interest, which, however, in 
this period of venality and selfishness, seems to be a consideration 
of the smallest importance, if any at all. 

Feb. 17. Received several letters from Salem, encouraging me 
to hope I may be permitted to return to my native country. 

FROM WILLIAM PYNCHON, ESQ. 

Salem, Jan. 2, 1784. 
Dear Sir: 

I have made inquiry amongst your friends, and all agree that 
although there seems to be no prospect of a repeal of the laws 
against absentees, yet the inhabitants of this town, the committees, 
and all orders, seem very desirous of your returning in the spring. 
As Mr. Cabot, by whom I shall send this, is urgent for it, and can 
inform you of the present temper and disposition of the people 
towards you, it will be needless for me to give you particulars. 
Assurances from hence as to security, etc., while the laws remain 
unrepealed, we cannot give you, other than private opinion only. 
Mr. Cabot will acquaint you, and, by what Mr. Vans says, you will 
have it in letters from several, that there is little or no danger of 



398 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1784. 

any prosecutions on the laws but from the respective towns, com- 
mittees, etc., where the absentee belonged ; and all seem to agree 
there can be, from present appearances, no danger from any of this 
town. Mr. Cabot will acquaint you as to the successes of all who 
have returned hither, and as to such as have returned to other 
states. At Providence, and in some parts of Connecticut, those who 
returned have been more cordially received and treated, and we 
hope a like temper will take place in Massachusetts in the spring 
and summer. Alcock cvasit et abdicavit with bag and baggage, 
and Whitaker seems to be hastening after him. These two politi- 
cians seem to have been the authors and promoters of more mis- 
chief than it is possible that any two who are left behind them 
either should or would effect, or even attempt. They resembled 
Swift's committee of ways and means for continuing the war and 
promoting malevolence and contention as long as possible ; bat at 
length they became contemned and deserted by all, and I cannot 
recollect any better proof or assurance you can have than the fate 
of these two persons as to the temper of the people of this town, 
and as to their disposition for peace and benevolence. However, 
you will doubtless attend to what you see in the public prints, as 
the resolves of assemblies in this and the other states, and judge for 
yourself. Mr. Dana has returned from Russia, and if you return 
here, during his continuance among us, it may prove a fortunate 
circumstance to you, as I have heard him repeatedly say much in 
favor of your attachments, connections, etc. 

I remain, dear sir, most respectfully, your friend, 

William Pynchon. 

Feb. 28. Mr. Pitt by invitation in the city, at Grocer's Hall, 
Cheapside ; great throngs attended ; he was drawn in his carriage 
by men. Returning late in the night, he was assaulted, and his 
and other carriages broken to pieces by men armed with bludgeons; 
supposed, not without reason, by Fox's party, and his party's en- 
couragement — a peevish, ill-judged resentment. 

March 7. Met Mr. William Walter, late from Nova Scotia, 
who at first sight recollected me and spoke ; my eye and memory 
weakened by age, and his features somewhat hardened, I could not 
suddenly recognize hira. 



1784.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 399 

March 16. Met my friend and countryman Mr. Isaac Smith, 
on the eve of his departure for Boston ; took him home to tea, but 
could not persuade him to pass the evening, being before engaged 
with the " Dr. Franklin Club" at London Tavern. 

March 20. Mr. Pitt, the great popular minister, because 
Charles J. Fox's antagonist, who is become the man of the people, 
(as Fox and his supporters arrogantly assumed to be, now the popu- 
lar odium, on account of his East India bill,) dined this day at the 
London Tavern, being the third public dinner of late in the city ; 
and who in his turn will probably, before the expiration of many 
months, be as much condemned and hissed as he is now caressed and 
applauded — popular breath rarely if ever long keeps one direction. 
March 26. Proclamation issued for dissolving Parliament, this 
being the third session, the House of Commons proving refractory 
and unyielding to the king's measures and servants, young Pitt, 
Thurlow, Gower, etc. The great seal was stolen last night from 
Lord Thurlow's, Great Ormond-street, with two swords and thirty 
guineas. 

Jipril 3. Accompanied my friend Mr. Isaac Smith and his 
brother in a post-chaise to Gravesend, the former being bound to 
Boston in the ship United States. Lodged at the Falcon inn. 

April 4. Took a long stroll to Milton Abbey ; saw the small 
remains of its ruins. 

April 6. The poll finished at Guildhall, the four former city 
members rechosen. A Mr. Cooper, owner of a wine vault, stated 
at my lodgings that contested elections generally consumed six 
thousand hogsheads of port wine extra, and that twenty -four thou- 
sand was the average yearly consumption of Great Britain and Ire- 
land. 

April 8. Mr. Alleyn, at Treasury, stated that no payment 
would be made these two months at soonest, for the public embar- 
rassments will greatly delay our quarterly payments. 

April 10. Drank tea at Mr. De Berdt's, where met General 
Reed, late from Philadelphia. 

April 14. Visited Col. Willard at No. 81 Charlotte-street, Port- 
land-place, to inquire about government's offer to convey refugees 
inclined to reside in Nova Scotia, with allowance to be continued 
as if in England. 



400 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1784. 

April 30. Walked to Limehouse church ; returned by Stepney 
church-yard, and saw therein a tomb inclosed within iron rails, in 
form of a coffin, said to contain the remains of a wife buried above 
ground in compliance with the will of a testator, who gave the 
husband an estate on that condition : he is depicted on a glass win- 
dow fronting the burial-ground as looking out at her tomb. After- 
wards, at New England Coffee-house, met Mr. Cox, w^ho asked me 
to tea with young Smith ; which I accepted, meeting there his 
father-in-law and Mr. Jackson of Newburyport. 

May 2. Attended service at Limehouse church ; Dr. Watson, 
bishop of Llandaff, preached : most excellent charity sermon to a 
crowded assembly. Bidding prayer was long, catholic, and charm- 
ingly delivered ; concluding sentence was," JYow to the King eter- 
nal," etc., instead of the usual one, " JYow to God the Father, God 
the Son,"' etc. His enunciation is loud, sonorous and manly, his 
person robust and tall. 

May 3. Attended the scrutiny in aldermen's room, Guild- 
hall, between Sawbridge and Atkinson, a case decided in favor 
of an act of Parliament against city right of aldermen's consent to 
the removal of a livery man from one company to another, with- 
out which it was asserted he was disqualified to vote for a member 
of Parliament, although of the livery and free. 

May 4. Mr. Danforth met me, and together we visited Mrs. 
Hay and staid till eight o'clock. 

FROM WILLIAM PYNCHON, ESQ. 

Salem, March 2, 1784. 

Dear Sir : 

As Messrs. Sparhawk, Bartlett and others are going in the 
Pilgrim, it will be needless to attempt giving you a particular ac- 
count of occurrences here. You will doubtless hear from them of 
the alteration in the temper of the people towards absentees, par- 
ticularly of our town. Alcock's going off, (or absconding,) with 
Dr. Whitaker's sinking in the esteem of the people, even at the 
fish-market and brandy-shops, has produced a good effect ; many 
show their disapprobation, and some their utter detestation of 
certain intolerant dispositions and persecuting measures. 



1784.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 401 

I said nothing about our Social Library, because of the present 
state of our finances and the want of reo;ular meetinos of the 
society. Mr. E. Hasket Derby has lately imported a considerable 
library of modern books, which proved to be very dear, as many 
think, and might have been purchased much cheaper by you ; 
therefore the proprietors wish to avail themselves of your advice 
and assistance, whether you shall continue in England or return 
hither. I find Mr. D. Oliver, third son of your good friend Andrew 
Oliver, Esq., goes also in the Pilgrim. All who can cross the 
Atlantic seem determined to go and procure their goods from Eng- 
land ; not one discovers a disposition to receive them from France, 
notwithstanding their generosity towards us. Going to England 
is now as formerly called going home. 

Many of our politicians seem desirous of seeing an English 
ambassador in America to balance the increasing interest and 
influence of France, whose intrigues perplex and alarm us. You 
doubtless have beard of Mr. Dana's return from the court of 
Russia without concluding a commercial treaty there : he is now 
chosen a member of Congress, and is soon to set out, warmly en- 
gaged in opposition to French politics. 

I have advised Mr. Oliver to seek you out and inform you about 
us all, who wish and expect your return in the summer ; as he is 
young, and a stranger, I doubt not you will notice him and render 
him all the kind offices which you may observe him to need. I 
have desired Mr. Bartlet to advise with you as to some of the 
latest and best plays, farces, etc., which we wish much to see. 

March 4. The Pilgrim not sailing this morning, I find time to 
recollect an omission I made last night. Some Americans have 
lately returned via Philadelphia to Boston, among them William 
McNeal, who went off with the troops from thence, and E. Wil- 
liams, who was an officer in the British service at New-York, and 
now receives half pay. McNeal, by means of the Committee of 
Safety, was taken up and used roughly on account of his conduct, 
as it is said, during the blockade at Boston ; but W^illiams met 
with no insult or obstruction there or at Salem, but is gone into the 
country to settle his affairs and then return to Nova Scotia. It is 
true he did not choose needlessly to go to the parade, or insurance 
offices, etc., but went about Salem visiting his particular friends, 

51 



402 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1784. 

and met with no indecency in the streets or elsewhere. Many 
have urged me heretofore to write, that you might return and 
reside here without the least danger or insult ; but while such as 
Alcock and Whitaker had the lead, I could not think nor say so. 
Now I may safely tell you what I have heard heretofore in the 
market-place, from some that are most desirous now for your 
return : — " Oh, let them return, by all means ; but they must re- 
member, that they are to down on their knees to the General 
Court in the first place, to the committee in the next, and to their 
townsmen too, and ask pardon, and then we may even let them 
stay among us, provided they behave as they ought; even your 
Col. Browne himself must submit to this." 

Your own and your friends' feelings require no observation on 
such insolence. This cannot now tend in the least to discourage 
your return ; lest it should heretofore, I thought best not to mention 
it. Farewell. 

Yours truly, 

William Pynchon. 

TO WILLIAM PYNCHON, ESQ., SALEM. 

London, May 9, 1784. 
My Deau Sir : 

Your favor of the 2d and 4th March was delivered into my hands 
by Mr. Bartlet, the sight of whom was as unexpected as agreeable. 
He acquaints me with an event foretold to the late Mr. Barnard and 
myself at Hartford, some thirteen years ago, by a clergyman of that 
town, concerning the mischievous incendiary (Dr. Whitaker) lately 
dismissed from the remnant of God's heritage over which he had for 
too long a time lorded, viz., that his proud, restless, turbulent spirit 
would not suffer him to continue long without attempting to disturb 
the peace of all within reach of his pernicious influence, and must force 
the neighborhood sooner or later to banish him. I confess, though 
at this great distance of time and place, I cannot resist the most 
pleasurable sensations on hearing this event. Whatever is the cause 
of an alteration in the people's notions, the effiects probably will 
prove advantageous to their characters and interest. 

My design being to continue in England till autumn, if the pro- 
prietors of the Social Library shall think me likely to serve their inter- 



1784.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 403 

est in the purchase of books, no exertions shall be wanting in my 
power to do them justice. There is one circumstance relating to 
books with which you may be unacquainted : the first edition of a 
book of character and quick sale bears a high price till the run has 
abated ; besides, the modish outside dress, emblematic of the taste of 
the age, enhances the price not a little. Second hand books, and 
those out of the tonish line, may generally be bought reasonably ; 
books of amusement and the beauties of modern writers are in com- 
mon estimation, and sell dear. 

Respecting Mr. Hasket Derby's library, if it was sent through a 
merchant, probably an addition was put to the bookseller's price of 
at least 25 per cent., not an uncommon practice here. 

Your mention of young Mr. Daniel Oliver is sufficient to 
recommend him to my respect and notice, if he shall see fit to 
desire it ; without which it is not likely I may see him, being 
rarely in the way of Americans, having forsaken the New England 
Coffee-house, grown old, the transatlantics young and unknown to 
me, and their manners and language unpleasing. 

The easy credit obtained here is astonishing, and characterizes 
truly this nation, who are credulous, generous, unsuspecting, and 
wealthy beyond belief; if great mutual complaints and sufferings 
do not follow the immense indiscriminate exports to America, I 
shall be much out of my reckoning. 

It will not be surprising to me if French politics will be as 
much execrated among you as they were admired and praised 
during the war ; it is morally impossible, that despotic as the court 
of Versailles is, she can relish the republican principles and maxims 
of the United States longer than she can make them subservient to 
her own ambitious purposes. All the world knows the ruin of 
Great Britain was the only object of her assisting America to throw 
off her dependence, and the folly of her statesmen has aided the 
views of that intriguing power. Never had this country a fairer 
opportunity of disappointing the pernicious views of her rival 
neighbors than the present, were there a public spirit in this in- 
fatuated nation ; but, alas ! a regard to the public welfare is no 
more to be found among its rulers. However indignantly I behold 
the conduct of her neighbors, I confess France should be consid- 
ered only as a rival power, striving to give the law to a state that 



404 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1784. 

has for more than a century made it a professed principle to thwart 
all her political views. I hope your people will have more 
wisdom than to permit an aristocratic spirit to take place among 
you ; for of all civil oppressions that is most intolerable. 

I sincerely thank you for all your favors, particularly the last ; 
the contents of your letters might have been published at the 
market-cross without injury to your character in the height of the 
war, unless with such persons as Alcock and Whitaker, whose 
mad party seal construed into guilt every innocent word and act 
of those they were disposed to slander and vilify. 
I am, with great truth, 

Your faithful and grateful friend, 

S. CURWEN. 

May 9. After service proceeded to Mr. Danforth's lodgings 
to take him by agreement to Kensington Gardens, where after a 
few turns adjourned to " Adam and Eve" ordinary. Mr. Samuel 
Porter and young Farnham afterwards joined us in the gardens, 
which we found excessively crowded ; among others the Duke of 
Chartres, brother of the French king, and two other French noble- 
men. 

May 11. Saw John Sparhawk from (near) Portsmouth for the 
first time. 

May 13. Saw Captain IngersoU from Salem. 

May 15. With Mr. Bartlet purchased plays for Mr. Pynchon, 
and law-books for Mr. Ward. Mr. Bartlet presented me with a 
medal struck in Philadelphia ; — in a round compartment stands, 

« U. S 5 . . . . 1783 ;"— round, " Libertas et Justitia ;" on the 

other side, in the centre, an eye surrounded by a glory ; the whole 
encompassed by thirteeii stars, — with the legend, " JVova Constel- 
latio." 

May 17. To Covent Garden ; abode an hour amidst very 
numerous throngs, this being the last day of polling, and Fox to be 
chaired, it is feared ; great riots and destruction Vt^ill be the conse- 
quence. The foot-guards and a squadron of horse are ordered 
to hold themselves in readiness, and approach within a callable 
distance. In the afternoon went to Covent Garden, now emptied ; 
the company gone to attend Mr. Fox's procession, — the hustings 



1784] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 405 

removed, and all the stands taken down. Proceeded thence to 
Charing Cross, which, to my surprise, I found crowded ; the pro- 
cession then just beginning to march by from Westminster Hall, 
in the following order : — the officers of each parish distinct, with 
their peculiar standards, attending two and two, with wands in their 
hands ; bands of music ; next gentlemen on horseback ; then others 
on foot ; in the rear was Mr. Byng, whose appearance was an- 
nounced by '^ Byng and Fox for ever P^ Then followed a few 
horsemen ; then Mr. Fox, mounted on a lofty chair, on and around 
interwoven with a laurel bower almost encompassing him ; soon 
after appeared a lofty white silk banner, with this inscription, — 
" Sacred to female patriotism ;" and was immediately followed 
by the Duchesses of Portland and Devonshire in their coaches, 
around which were laurel festoons, each drawn by six horses j the 
whole concluded with about thirty private carriages. An innume- 
rable crowd attended, and with vociferous acclamations, but no 
riot nor mobbing; government having wisely provided the horse 
and foot-guards, w^hich probably discouraged the ill-disposed. 

May 20. Parson Walter and Mr. Danforth visited me and 
took tea. 

May 21. Visited by Captain Ingersoll from Salem, from whom I 
have heard more particulars relative to the present state of the town 
and its inhabitants than for several years. 

TO WILLIAM VANS, ESQ., SALEM. 

London, May 21, 1784. 
Dear Sir : 

Your favor of 2d January, was, I acknowledge, unexpected ; 
but did not surprise me, though at this late day. The difference of 
your sentiments from mine and those of my mistaken friends, 
needed not to have caused the destruction of your former letter ', 
for how wide soever our political notions have been, or perhaps 
now are, that letter, I dare say, conceived in purity of intention, 
and brought forth in decency of expression, could not have failed 
to prove informative and amusing ; and on that score a welcome 
present. Besides, I sit in judgment on no man ; wishing for candor 
towards myself, I think it my duty to practise it in my turn to all ; 
referring it to God alone to approve or condemn, who alone has 



406 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1784. 

the right ; and to knaves and fools who have none, to usurp that 
right. 

The doubts that have hitherto discouraged my attempting to 
trust the faithless waves again, are derived from more than one 
source. However wanting in respect the appellation, I had 
rather be accounted a timid friend, a light you say I am 
viewed in, than an enemy ; a reproach I am not conscious to 
have deserved. 

Your report of the returned penitents to their former habitations, 
strengthens my belief of lenity towards myself, should I ever be in 
a condition to stand in need of such lenity. However, if I rightly 
understand the meaning of your caution to address to the care of a 
friend, you yourself, sanguine and positive as you are of the safety 
of my person and property, think it a proper precaution to slip 
behind the curtain for a while after entering on the territories of the 
United States ; a part, Mr. Vans, I shall on no account stoop to 
act, dissimulation being no part of my character, and I am too late 
in life to assume new habits. 

I am well pleased to hear of the singular moderation of the 
town of Salem ; if other towns have been violent in words only, 
as your letter intimates, their character is greatly injured and the 
public abused. 

Having answered your letter, I now take leave, after subscribing 
myself with due regards. Your friend, 

S. CURWEN. 

June 8. WilHam Browne, lately arrived from Gibraltar, where 
he served as an officer during the siege, son of Colonel Browne, 
now governor of Bermudas, called on me after an interval of 
six years ; he appears intelhgent, and his manners much refined. 

June 11. To my townsman, S. Porter's lodgings, Kensington, 
through the gardens. There seems no inclination in him or any 
refugees to return back ', fed, I presume, with delusive hopes of a 
compensation, or rather deluding themselves with ungrounded ex- 
pectations founded only in their vain wishes and desires of court 
compassion, which may be justly added to Lord Rochester's list of 
ideal nothings. 

June 19. At one o'clock the funeral procession of Sir Barnard 



1784.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 407 

Turner, sheriff", passed through Bishopgate-street amidst great 
crowds, though much lessened by the delay which the populace 
mistook for its being laid aside ; the body had been arrested after 
it was put into the hearse, in the street, for a considerable debt, 
which was afterwards compromised, on whose or what account is 
variously stated. The hearse was preceded by two hnes ofthe 
artillery association, headed by an officer and five privates abreast, 
their firelocks reversed, marching in slow pace, muffled drums 
beating, trumpets sounding, and other instruments playing the 
104th psalm tune ; the hearse was adorned with large flowing 
plumes of ostrich feathers, just before which was led the horse of 
the deceased, dressed in black ; on the saddle were laid the hat, 
sword, and boots crossed. A small detachment of the artillery 
company followed the carriage of the deceased and those of his 
brother sheriffs ; after which the whole closed by fourteen car- 
riages, each drawn by two pair of horses ; the whole was to 
proceed nine miles, to Tottenham ; solemn and pompous in the 
extreme. 

June 22. At New England Coffee-house read Mr. Pitt's speech 
and motion to stop the smuggling of tea, by a repeal of the heavy 
duty on that article, and substituting a lighter one ; and to prevent 
any injury to the revenue, by laying an additional house and 
window tax, whereby the poor and middling classes will be eased ; 
and the burden, as it ought, will lay on the wealthy. Polling in 
the Borough for the election of a member in the room of the late 
Sir Barnard Turner ; candidates. Sir Richard Hotham, and Mr. 
Paul Mesurier. 

FROM HON. JONATHAN SEWALL. 

Bristol, June 28, 1784. 
Dear Sir : 

Accept my thanks for your kind communication of your inten- 
tions to revisit America, and for your obliging offer of accepting 
any services I may wish to trouble you with. I am clear in my 
judgment that you are perfectly right in your present determination ; 
you have taken no active part, — your family has remained unmo- 
lested, and Mr. F. Cabot assures me, that whenever you choose to 
return you will be received with the warmest cordiality by all your 



408 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1784. 

old friends, and will receive no insult from any ; in short, that you 
may go as safely as he can. This was his closing expression. 
You have not told me when you intend to embark ; if you think 
proper to give me seasonable notice of the time, perhaps I may 
trouble you with the care of one or two letters, provided you dare 
be the bearer of them from an alien — ti^aitor by law, vide Act of 
1779. If you have any qualms, as I don't know but you may, 
upon good grounds, give me but a hint of your fears or wishes, 
and I shall conform to either, as my letters will be of no importance 
to myself or my correspondents — no treason, no politics, I assure 
you. If you go, as I with twenty-eight others still remain exiles, 
it is not probable we shall ever see each other again, in this world- 
God only knows what kind of one the next will be, whether more 
or less dirty— be it what it may, if we meet I shall most joyfully 
take you by the hand. Indeed I don't absolutely despair of seeing 
you again in this strange world, for upon my soul, though I was 
born and bred yet I am a stranger in it ; but my design is to go 
out to N. Scotia this autumn or early in the spring — there, if you 
wish, you may see me, but while the unjust, illiberal, lying act of 
1779 remains unrepealed, never will I set foot on the territories of 
the thirteen United Independent States. I feel no resentment 
against them. I wish them more happiness in their unnatural in- 
dependence than my judgment allows me to hope for them— but I 
have been mistaken throughout the whole voyage; yet, however 
I may have been out in my former opinions, I wish my judgment 
may still be erroneous — I wish, most sincerely, my native country 
may meet all the happiness she has sought, per fas et nefas — she 
thinks sue has obtained it— I wish she may not be mistaken ; but I 
have my doubts. 

Mrs. Sewall accepts with thanks your compliments, and returns 
them most cordially ; my sister, whom you kindly remember, died, 
poor girl, on the 17th of May last, after a paralytic stroke about 
three months before ; I think I may say, she has gone with as few 
faults on her head as any of us can expect to go with. I miss her 
greatly, — but why should we complain 1 

I am your humble servant and sincere friend, 

JoNA. Sewall. 



1784.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 409 



TO HON. JUDGE SEWALL, BRISTOL. 

London, June 29, 1784. 
Dear Sir : 

On some accounts I shall return to America with reluctance, 
having many doubts on my mind of meeting- such a reception as 
will encourage my continued abode in that land of purity, sanctity 
and liberty. I feel too independent a spirit within to apprehend or 
regard any danger from republican licentiousness, which ever has 
been my contempt and abhorrence. 

The following inter nos. The success of my application to the 
commissioners, now sitting in the Treasury, I am as yet ignorant of; 
my memorial or petition was this day delivered in, and is to be con- 
sidered to-morrow. Whatever shall be the event I shall endeavor 
to support the same spirit, though a success equal to my supposed 
just expectations would serve as pillars or buttresses in an old tot- 
tering edifice, to add strength and support thereto. 

Please make my compliments to your family, and to Mr. Sam- 
uel Sew all if in your neighborhood. 

Dear sir, your affectionate friend, etc., 

S. Cur WEN. 

June 29. After composing the following petition, I proceeded 
with it to the Treasury — dubious of its fate or fortune. 

" To the Commissioners appointed by act of Parliament to con- 
sider the sufferings and service oftherAmerican loyalists: 

" The petition of Samuel Curwen humbly showeth : That your 
petitioner was forced to abandon his home and dwelling by the 
repeated menaces of the people within a few days after the unhap- 
py rencounter at Lexington, who reproached all persons with the 
invidious appellation of tories, as they chose to call such as did not 
openly accuse the king's troops as aggressors, were for supporting 
law and order, and for forbearing future violences ; among which 
number your petitioner was one. Taking refuge aboard a vessel 
bound to Philadephia, he arrived there, hoping to find an asylum 
from outrage and indignity ; but in this he was mistaken, for 
though that city had during all former wars shown a manifest dis- 
like to military levies and arrangements, and when in the late dis- 

52 



410 JOURNAL AND LETTERS, [1784. 

pute, a sinpjular moderation ; at this period the political frenzy 
had risen to an equal height as in New England, and your petition- 
er was soon informed that that city could prove no refuge to him, 
even by those friends under whose protection he sought for safety ; 
the only condition of his continuing there was a public renunciation 
of his principles, acknowledging his errors, and promising future 
obedience to the new assumed powers. Loth to be held up to the 
public in so disgraceful and mortifying a view, and to confess a 
falsehood, he took the only alternative in his power. All communi- 
cation with the northward by sea being forbidden by the city 
committee of safety and inspection, lest General Gage's troops at 
Boston should be supplied with flour, etc., and by land no letters 
could be sent but under the inspection of the state inquisitors — the 
regular post-office established by act of Parliament being shut up, 
and travelling by land dangerous to any but those called sons of 
liberty — he therefore took shipping again, and after a series of 
dangers in a very tedious passage, arrived in London, where and 
in the country, he has resided to the present time, subsisting whilst 
his own stock lasted on that, and since on the public bounty. 
Having received some overtures since the peace took place from 
some of his townsmen of Salem, which, together with the sad de- 
rangement of his affairs there, makes him wish to revisit his native 
country of New England, but the advices from his friends rendering 
it still doubtful whether he can with safety and comfort pass the 
remainder of his days there — being near the verge of threescore 
years and ten — he proposes therefore to retreat to Nova Scotia 
or one of the royal colonies, in case he cannot obtain a resettlement 
on the forementioned conditions, and therefore humbly requests 
liberty to appoint an agent here to receive the usual allowance 
hitherto indulged him, and for so long a time as may be judged 
proper to continue it. 

And your petitioner as in duty bound, etc., 

Samuel Curwen." 

July 2. Went to Treasury ; returned re iiifeda, not a little 
deranged but not much disappointed ; my expectations from court 
not being high, I can suffer but rarely any inconvenience, taking 
care not to put myself in the way of frequent mortification. The 



1784.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 411 

present application is of a kind I should have thought not liable to 
a repulse, many such favors having been already granted, if the re- 
quest deserves not rather the appellation of a just demand. 

July 5. Went to the Treasury, and there received the agreea- 
ble information that the commissioners had granted my petition to 
appoint an agent to receive my quarterly allowance after my de- 
parture from England, on making satisfactory proof of my being 
alive at the successive periods of payment. From this I date an 
end to my doubts respecting my embarkation ; its issue time must 
reveal. 

July 7. Made an early visit to Mr. Gorham, to talk on the 
subject of our passage with Capt. Ingersoll. 

July 8. On 'change met Capt. Folger and John Spar- 
hawk, both of whom I wish to embark with Mr. Gorham and my- 
self with Capt. Ingersoll. Mr. Jonathan Jackson called on me for 
a letter of introduction to Mr. George Russell of Birmingham, 
which I cheerfully gave, acquainting Mr. Russell that he possessed 
an unblemished reputation and extensive property, in case he may 
form any commercial arrangement there. 

TO REV. JOSEPH BRETLAND, EXETER. 

London, July 9, 1784. 
Dear Sir : 

I could not, with my strong sense of obligation to Mr. Bretland 
for the many instances of respectful attention received from him 
during my residence in the west, leave England without acknow- 
ledging them. My departure from London will be within a fort- 
night — a voyage at this late hour of my life is an undertaking, 
even were the prospects bright, I would gladly dispense with ; but 
duty and interest call too loudly to be resisted. I presume your 
acquaintance on the western continent lies in a very narrow com- 
pass ; however, if it shall be in my power to serve or amuse you 
in respect to the concerns in that distant quarter, I shall feel my- 
self obliged by gratifying your wish. 

I know not in what employment I am to pass the small rem- 
nant of my days, should Providence permit my safe return home ; 
but I shall not think part of it ill-bestowed in directing and assist- 
ing the studies and pursuits of my niece's children, who are just of 



412 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1784. 

an age to receive useful ideas — with regard to the Enghsh, Latin 
and Greek tongues, I shall esteem it a peculiar favor if you will 
be pleased to forward me a list of books and the order in which 
they should be used. 

Very truly your friend, 

S. CURWEN. 



July 10. To the Treasury ; found the American door besieged 
by a score of mendicants like myself, waiting their turns — though 
I thought my early attendance would have entitled me to No. 1, 1 
was glad to stand No. 21 ; so great was the crowd that I was 
more than once about to depart and leave them. 

July 11. With Capt. Coombs took an airing to the tower, 
having encompassed it on the ramparts, and taken a view of the 
American thirteen stripes flying on eight vessels lying in one tier ; 
the first view I ever distinctly had of their independent naval glory. 
Arranged about going with Capt. Ingersoll. 

July 16. Gave a power of attorney to George Bainbridge of 
Bread-street, to receive my pension quarterly. 

July 18. Mr. Cassini, the French mathematician, having 
presented through his ambassador in London a memorial, praying 
that some person would undertake to carry triangles from Green- 
wich to Dover to meet the French at Calais, in order to determine 
the exact distance between the observatories of Paris and Green- 
wich ; his majesty, who is ever ready to patronize useful schemes, 
immediately granted one thousand pounds for the carrying it on, 
and General Roy was, by his own consent, fixed upon for the un- 
dertaking. 

TO REV. JOSEPH BRETLAND, EXETER, DEVON. 

London, July 19, 1784. 
Dear Sir : 

Your obliging favor of the 17th is just received. For a long 
time I was flattered with the expectation that my philosophical ac- 
quaintance would comply with his promise to answer your favor, 
till I had in truth forgotten I had not written you, and my delay 
arose from his, which at last ended in a refusal. He seems to value 



1784.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 413 

himself on a freedom from the shackles of fear, and thinks that, 
an advantage which no believer in the existence of a Deity can 
boast of, and to that principle refers all those labored treatises to 
prove one ; and though fully convinced of the truth of his system, 
is satisfied a universal belief of them in the present state of things 
would not be productive of beneficial effects in society, which to 
me is instead of a thousand arguments to manifest their falsity. 

I would with unfeigned pleasure travel further than the distance 
between us to meet my worthy friend, but unless the weather pre- 
vent, or some unforeseen accident intervene, to which human af- 
fairs are liable, I shall take shipping within four days. It repents 
me much that I had not availed myself of leisure to have visited 
you ; but past neglects may be, like this, lamented, not repaired. 

Your kind information in respect to method of teaching, I thank 
you for ; your friendly caution I take in good part, and shall not 
fail to attend to it; and your request, you may depend on my 
compliance with. 

Be pleased to make my respectful compliments to all friends. 
I remain, with real regard. 

Yours, 

S. CURWEN. 

July 20. Went to Mr. Copley's, George-street, Hanover- 
square, to take my leave of him, and pay my last compliments to 
his father-in-law, Mr. R. Clarke, and the family. Mr. Copley ab- 
sent at Tunbridge. 

July 22. Accompanied by Mr. Nathaniel Gorhara, breakfasted 
on board ship Union, Capt. Jonathan Ingersoll, wherein I have en- 
gaged my passage to Bostgn ; met Benjamin Pickman the elder 
and younger. Dined at Mr. De Berdt's, in company with General 
Joseph Reed of Philadelphia, and Mr. Gorham ; also drank tea 
and passed the evening there. 

July 25, Sunday. Attended worship at Mr. Lindsay's chapel, 
Essex-street, Strand ; took my final leave of Mr. Lindsay and Dr. 
Disney at the chapel door. 

July 28. Took leave at lodgings 107 Bishopgate-street with- 
in, and proceeded to the ship Union, lying at Irongate, where I 
pm-pose to abide till my arrival at Gravesend. Paid twenty guineas 



4 14 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1784. 

in part for my passage money. From henceforth I bid an ever- 
lasting farewell to London. At ten o'clock the Tower guns, to the 
number of eighty, were discharged ; this being the day appointed 
by royal proclamation to be observed as a thanksgiving for the 
general peace. Despatched a boat to bring Capt. Coombs from 
his brig Minerva ; Capt. Patterson and Cleves also drank tea with us. 

Aug. 1. Proceeded down the river with a fair wind. 

Jiug. 2. Anchored off Deal. 

Aug. 3. Capt. Ingersoll with two passengers arrived on board ; 
immediately after the ship broke ground, and in an hour entered 
the Channelj and now hey for the ocean. 

Aug. 4. This morning all our passengers breakfasted together 
for the first time; their names, Nathaniel Gorham, William Smith, 
Lewis and Francis Deblois, of Boston, a Mr. Isle, and myself. 

Aug. 6. Stood in for St. Helen's road ; thence proceeded to 
Cowes harbor, Isle of Wight, where we anchored ; went ashore, 
took tea and supped at the Vine inn. 

Aug. 7. With four fellow-passengers took coach for Newport, 
the only borough town on the island, consisting of four hundred 
houses ; it lies at the head of water beyond Cowes five miles ; re- 
markable for no manufactures or productions, natural or artificial : 
thence trudged it on foot to Carisbrook Castle, on an eminence a 
mile or more distant, now in ruins, and inhabited by a family named 
Poney, consisting of two or three maidens and their servants. The 
church is a living of <£120 per annum. After dinner we all set off 
for our ship. 

Aug. 8. Got under weigh, and at six o'clock are now in the 
bay, steering for Lymington road, where we arrived at nine o'clock 
and anchored, waiting for the ebb to carry us through the Needles 
at a league's distance. These rocks lie on the island side of the en- 
trance, and on the opposite shore of the main land of England. On 
a point, of a mile or so in length, stands Hurst Castle, remarkable 
in history for being the prison of King Charles, not long before his 
execution. 

Aug. 10. Supposed off Berryhead, at five leagues distant. 
Afternoon changed our course and entered Dartmouth harbor. 

Aug. 11. At six o'clock A. M. in the offing, Start bearing N. 
by E., four leagues distant ; dead calm ; ten vessels in sight. 



1784.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 415 

Aug. 13. Spoke brig Paragon, twenty-eight days out from 
Alexandria, with Mr. and Mrs. Hughes on board. 

Sept. 25. Arrived at Boston, and at half past three o'clock 
landed at the end of Long-wharf, after an absence of nine years 
and five months, occasioned by a lamented civil war, excited by 
ambitious, selfish men here and in England, to the disgrace, dis- 
honor, distress, and disparagement of these extensive territories. 
By plunder and rapine some few have accumulated w^ealth, but 
many more are greatly injured in their circumstances ; some have 
to lament over the wreck of their departed wealth and estates, of 
which pitiable number T am ; my affairs having sunk into irre- 
trievable ruin. 

TO CAPT. MICHAEL COOMBS, LONDON. 

Salem, Mass., Oct. 9, 1784. 
Dear Sir : 

This day fortnight, at half past three P. M., I landed on the 
head of the Long-wharf, in Boston, being the first American ground 
I had touched since May 12, 1775, when I departed from Phila- 
delphia. It is no less strange than unaccountable, how low, mean 
and diminutive every thing on shore appeared to me. On Sunday, 
being the day following, I left for this place, where I alighted at 
the house of my former residence, and not a man, woman, or child, 
but expressed a satisfaction at seeing me, and welcomed me back. 
Thus much for myself. 

The few things for your widow I have delivered into her hands, 
and I find her a woman of uncommon vigor and equanimity, nor 
do I think one to be met with who has better acquitted herself in 
the late trying times. By her resolution she has preserved the 
household furniture from confiscation and waste, and your account- 
books from inspection, though menaced and flattered by the state 
agents. The melancholy derangement of my own affairs has so 
entirelyunsettled me, that I can scarce attend to any thing. I 
think it very unlikely my house can be saved.* It shall be among 
my first engagements to attend to your affairs. 

With real regard, your friend, 

S. CURWEN. 
" It was saved from confiscation, 



416 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1784. 

TO JONATHAN SMITH, ESQ., PHILADELPHIA 

Salem, Oct 9, 1784. 
Dear Sir :- 

A few days since I returned to the place of my nativity, after 
an absence of more than nine years, in which interval I find great 
revolutions to have taken place, not only with regard to the civil 
and pohtical state of America in general, but also with respect to 
the property of individuals. "Whilst some from the narrowest and 
baset condition have arisen to high honors and great wealth, others 
from comfortable, reputable, and even respectable and affluent, 
have fallen into indigent and distressed circumstances ; and al- 
though the latter is not exactly my case, I confess myself verging 
to that point ; my affairs are sadly deranged, but I hope time and 
application will cure the disorder. For that purpose, I beg you 
will forward to me a box containing my account-books left in your 
father's hands for security during my absence. 

Your most obedient servant, 

S. CURWEN. 

TO CAPT. MICHAEL COOMBS, LONDON. 

Salem, JYov. 15, 1784. 
Dear Sir : 

I have waited on Mr. Sewall,* a lawyer of your town ; from him 
I learn he has undertaken to procure the necessary papers, and 
will, at my pressing instance, set about it immediately ; my argu- 
ment being constantly, delay is almost as fatal to my friend as total 
neglect. 

I am now to congratulate you on the salvation of your wharf 
and warehouse from the villainous hands of the rapacious harpies, 
the commissioners ; that part of your real estate, by great luck was 
neglected in the libel by which your other was seized and confis- 
cated, and therefore it still remains your property. What debts 
are claimed and proved, must, by the law that confiscates, be levied 
on and taken out of the estate sold, the remainder escheats to the 

* Mr. Samuel Sewall, of Marblehead, afterwards chief justice of Mas- 
sachusetts. 



1784] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 417 

public treasury. But so infamously knavish has been the conduct 
of the commissioners, that though frequent attempts have been 
made to bring them to justice, and respond for the produce of the 
funds resting in their hands, so numerous are the defaulters in that 
august hody, the General Court, that all efforts have hitherto proved 
vain. Not twopence in the pound have arrived to the public trea- 
sury of all the confiscations ! 

Mr. Sewall says, were you disposed, he would advise you not 
to come here, until the act respecting refugees or absentees be 
passed, which will be, it is thought, this session. 

The triumphant here look down with contempt on the van- 
quished ; their little minds are not equal to the astonishing success 
of their feeble arms. God bless the worthy and blast the villainous 
of every party.* 

Very truly yours, 

S. CURWEN. 



TO HON. JUDGE SEWALL, BRISTOL, ENGLAND. 

Salem, Kov. 22, 1784. 
Dear Sir: 

I find myself completely ruined. I confess I cannot bear to 
stay and perish under the ruins of my late ample property, and 
shall, therefore, as soon as I can recover my account-books, left in 
Philadelphia on my departure from America, and settle my deranged 
affairs, retreat to Nova Scotia, unless my allowance shall be taken 
from me. I am ignorant whether it may be prudent to make appli- 
cation to the commissioners on American refugees' afl^airs ; but being 
here by their indulgence, I wish my allowance may continue. And 
if in this representation you can afford me any assistance by your- 
self, or in concert with Mr. Danforth, to whom I have also written, 
I shall thankfully acknowledge your counsel and aid, as a kind en- 
deavor to rescue from want your old and faithful friend, 

S. CuRWEN. 

* Capt. Coombs, to whom the foregoing letter was addressed, and who is 
often mentioned in Judge Curwen's Journal, was a respectable merchant of 
Marblehead, Mass., to which place he returned some years after the peace, 
and died there at an advanced age. 

53 



418 JOURNAL AND LETTERS. [1795. 

1795. [The following letters were written ten years after 
Judge Curwen's return, when in his eightieth year. He survived 
several years longer, having died at Salem April, 1802.] 

TO SAMUEL CURWEN, ESa. 

Dorchester, Feb. 6, 1795. 
Dear Sir : 

Many years are elapsed since I saw you. Hearing lately that 
you were returned to Salem, T have taken this opportunity to write 
to you. In the year 1741 I was taken ill, and continued poorly 
several years, but as Providence ordered it, got better and have kept 
school here fourteen years ; I was treasurer for the town thirty-seven 
years, and one of the selectmen and assessors thereof forty years. 
Although the most of our class that are dead seemed more likely 
to live long than I, yet to a wonder I am spared. It pleased God 
in his holy providence a few years since to deprive me of my habi- 
tation by fire ; by the help of friends I have got up a house, and 
have so far finished it that I and my family live in it. 

Be pleased to let me hear from you, if you can send a letter to 
Mr. Hopestill Capens, a kinsm&n of mine living in Boston, near 
the market ; I hope I shall receive it. If you come to Boston, be 
pleased to come over and see me ; I live within four miles of the 
State-house. 

From your classmate, 

Noah Clap. 

TO NOAH CLAP. 

Salem, February 18, 1795. 
My Friend Clap : 

Your unexpected but agreeable letter of the 6th inst. was re- 
ceived about a week since, wherein you say you are among the 
very few of our fellow-students and classmates that are still in the 
land of the living. This has been a subject of my frequent thoughts 
and inquiry ; the result follows : Willis, Clap, Cook, Curwen, Parsons, 
Smith, Pierce, Snell ; Hovey uncertain.* You observe, " although 

* Judge Curwen was of the class (thirty-eight in number) graduated at 
Harvard College in 1735 ; of whom it seems eight, and perhaps nine, were 
living in 1795. 



1795.] JOURNAL AND LETTERS. 419 

most of our classmates that are dead and gone seemed more likely to 
live thanl," etc. ; on which I remark, it is a subject of constant obser- 
vation among persons of thought and reflection, to which by expe- 
rience I subscribe, that most of those whose health-promising coun- 
tenances, lively spirits, and great bodily strength promise long 
life, are most commonly cut off in the midst of life, while the more 
feeble, complaining, and those frequently confined by illness, are 
continued to a comparatively long life, and rendered capable of 
more enjoyment than in the days of youth and middle age, of which 
number I profess myself to be one. Thanks to the gracious Being 
who has, in mercy I hope, lengthened my life to one of the longest 
periods in these days, being entered, more than two months, in ray 
eightieth year ; which I presume is your length of years. 

Agreeably to your invitation, I shall, when the roads and wea- 
ther prove favorable for travelling, continue my next journey as 
far as your dwelling, and in the mean time I remain, with due 
regards, 

Your friend and well wisher, 

S. CURWEN. 



SUPPLEMENT; 



CONTAINING 



ILLUSTRATIVE DOCUMENTS, 



AND 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES OF INDIVIDUALS 



MENTIONED IN THE FOREGOING WORK. 



SUPPLEMENT. 



ILLUSTRATIVE DOCUMENTS 



ADDRESS OF THE MERCHANTS AND OTHERS OF BOSTON, 
TO GOV. HUTCHINSON. 

Boston, May 30, 1774. 

We, merchants and traders of the town of Boston, and others, 
do now wait on you, in the most respectful manner, before your 
departure for England, to testify, for ourselves, the entire satisfac- 
tion we feel at your wise, zealous, and faithful administration, dur- 
ing the few years that you have presided at the head of this province. 
Had your success been equal to your endeavors, and to the warmest 
wishes of your heart, we cannot doubt that many of the evils under 
which we now suffer, would have been averted, and that tranquillity 
would have been restored to this long divided province ; but we 
assure ourselves that the want of success in those endeavors will 
not abate your good wishes when removed from us, or your ear- 
nest exertions still on every occasion to serve the true interest of 
this your native country. 

While we lament the loss of so good a governor, we are greatly 
relieved that his Majesty, in his gracious favor, hath appointed as 
your successor a gentleman who, having distinguished himself in 
the long command he hath held in another department, gives us 
the most favorable prepossessions of his future administration. 

We greatly deplore the calamities that are impending and will 
soon fall on this metropolis, by the operation of a late act of Par- 
liament for shutting up the port on the first of next month. You 



424 ILLUSTRATIVE DOCUMENTS. 

cannot but be sensible, sir, of the numberless evils that will ensue 
to the province in general, and the miseries and distresses into 
which it will particularly involve this town, in the course of a few 
months. Without meaning to arraign the justice of the British 
Parliament, we could humbly wish that this act had been couched 
with less rigor, and that the execution of it had been delayed to a 
more distant time, that the people might have had the alternative 
either to have complied with the conditions therein set forth, or to 
have submitted to the consequent evils on refusal ; but as it now 
stands, all choice is precluded, and however disposed to compliance 
or concession the people may be, they must unavoidably suffer 
very great calamities before they can receive relief. Making res- 
titution for damage done to the property of the East India Company, 
or to the property of any individual, by the outrage of the people, 
we acknowledge to be just ; and though we have ever disavowed, 
and do now solemnly bear our testimony against such lawless pro- 
ceedings, yet, considering ourselves as members of the same commu- 
nity, we are fully disposed to bear our proportions of those damages, 
whenever the sum aiid the manner of laying it can be ascertained. 
"We earnestly request that you, sir, who know our condition, and 
have at all times displayed the most benevolent disposition towards 
us, will, on your arrival in England, interest yourself in our behalf, 
and make such favorable representations of our case, as that we 
may hope to obtain speedy and effectual relief. 

May you enjoy a pleasant passage to England ; and under all 
the mortifications you have patiently endured, may you possess the 
inward and consolatory testimonies of having discharged your trust 
with fidelity and honor, and receive those distinguishing marks of 
his Majesty's royal approbation and favor, as may enable you to 
pass the remainder of your life in quietness and ease, and preserve 
your name with honor to posterity. 

William Blair, John Greenlaw, 

James Selkrig, Benjamin Clark, 

Archibald Wilson, William McAlpine, 

Jeremiah Green, Jonathan Snelling, 

Samuel H. Sparhawk, James Hall, 

Joseph Turin, William Dickson. 

Roberts & Co., John Wiaslow, jr., 



ILLUSTRATIVE DOCUMENTS. 



425 



TheophilusLillie, 

Miles Whitworth, 

James McEwen, 

William Codner, 

James Perkins, 

John White, 

Robert Jarvis, 

William Perry, 

James &; Patrick McMasterSj 

William Coffin, 

Simeon Stoddard, jr. 

John Powell, 

Henry Laughton, 

Eliphalet Pond, 

M. B. Goldthwait, 

Peter Hughes, 

Samuel Hughes, 

John Semple, 

Hopestill Capen, 

Edward King, 

Byfield Lynde, 

George Lynde, 

A. F. Phipps, 

Rufus Green, 

David Phips, 

Richard Smith, 

George Spooner, 

Daniel Silsby, 

William Cazneau, 

James Forrest, 

Edward Cox, 

John Berry, 

Richard Hirons, 

Ziphion Thayer, 

John Joy, 

Joseph Goldthwait, 

Samuel Prince, 

Jonathan Simpson, 

James Boutineau, 

Nathaniel Hatch, 

64 



Martin Gay, 
Joseph Scott, 
Samuel Minot, 
Benjamin M. Holmes, 
Archibald McNiel, 
George Leonard, 
John Borland, 
Joshua Loring, jr., 
William Jackson, 
James Anderson, 
David Mitchelson, 
Abraham Savage, 
James Asby, 
John Inman, 
John Coffin, 
Thomas Knight, 
Benjamin Green, jr. 
David Green, 
Benjamin Green, 
Henry H. Williams, 
James Warden, 
Nathaniel Coffin, jr., 
Silvester Gardiner, 
John S. Copley, 
Edward Foster, 
Colbourn Burrell, 
Nathaniel Greenwood, 
William Burton, 
John Winslow, 
Isaac Winslow, jr., 
Thomas Oliver, 
Henry Bloye, 
Benjamin Davis, 
Isaac Winslow, 
Lewis Deblois, 
Thomas Aylwin, 
William Bowes, 
Gregory Townsend, 
Francis Green, 
Philip Dumaresq, 



426 ILLUSTRATIVE DOCUMENTS, 

Harrison Gray, Henry hyddeUf 

Peter Johonnot, Nathaniel Gary, 

George Erving-y George Brinley, 

Joseph Green, Richard Lechmere, 

John Vassal!, John Erving, jr., 

Nathaniel Coffin^ Thomas Gray, 

John TimminSj, George BethunCy 

William Tailor, Thomas Apthorp, 

Thomas Brinley, Ezekial Goldthwaite, 

Harrison Gray, jr., Benjamin Gridley, 

John Taylor, John Atkinson, 

Gilbert Deblois, Ebenezer Bridgham, 

Joshua Winslow, John Gore, 

Daniel Hubbard, Adino Paddock. 
Hugh Turbett, 

ADDRESS OF THE INHABITANTS OF MARBLEHEAD TO GOV- 
HUTCHINSON. 

MarUehead, May 25, 1774, 
His Majesty having been pleased to appoint his Excellency the 
Hon. Thomas Gage, Esq., to be governor and commander-in-chief 
over this province, and you, (as we are informed,) being speedily 
to embark for Great Britain : We, the subscribers, merchants, 
traders, and others, inhabitants of Marblehead, beg leave to present 
you our valedictory address on this occasion j and as this is the 
only way we now have of expressing to you our entire approbation 
of your public conduct during the time you have presided in this 
province, and of making you a return of our most sincere and 
hearty thanks for the ready assistance which you have at all times 
afforded us, when applied to in matters which affected our naviga- 
tion and commerce, we are induced from former experience of 
your goodness, to believe that you will freely indulge us in the 
pleasure of giving you this testimony of our sincere esteem and 
gratitude. 

In your public administration, we are fully convinced that the 
general good was the mark which you have ever aimed at, and we 
can, sir, with pleasure assure you, that it is likewise the opinion of 
all dispassionate thinking men within the circle of our observation, 
notwithstanding many publications would have taught the world to 



ILLUSTRATIVE DOCUMENTS. 427 

think the contrary ; and we beg leave to entreat you, that when 
you arrive at the court of Great Britain, you would there embrace 
every opportunity of moderating the resentment of the government 
against us, and use your best endeavors to have the unhappy dis- 
pute between Great Britain and this country brought to a just and 
e^uiable determination. 

We cannot omit the opportunity of returning you in a particular 
manner our most sincere thanks for your patronizing our cause in 
the matter of entering and clearing the fishing vessels at the 
custom-house, and making the fishermen pay hospital money ; we 
believe it is owing to your representation of the matter, that we 
are hitherto free from that burden. 

We heartily wish you, sir, a safe and prosperous passage to 
Great Britain, and when you arrive there may you find such a re- 
ception as shall fully compensate for all the insults and indignities 
which have been offered you. 

Henry Saunders, Nathan Bowen, 

Eichard Hinkly, Thomas Robie, 

Samuel Reed, John Stimson, 

John Lee, John Webb, 

Robert Ambrose, Joseph Lee, 

Jonathan Glover, Thomas Lewis, 

Richard Phillips, Sweet Hooper, 

Isaac Mansfield, Robert Hooper, 

Joseph Bubler, Jacob Fowle, 

Richard Stacy, John Pedrick, 

Thomas Procter, Richard Reed, 

John Fowle, Benjamin Marston, 

Robert Hooper, 3d, Samuel White, 

John Gallison, Joseph Hooper, 

John Prince, John Prentice, 

George McCall, Robert Hooper, jr. 
Joseph Svvasey, 

ADDRESS OF THE BARRISTERS AND ATTORNEYS OF MAS- 
SACHUSETTS TO GOV. HUTCHINSON, MAY 30, 1774. 

A firm persuasion of your inviolable attachment to the real 
interests of this your native country, and of your C( nstant readiness, 
by every service in your power, to promote its true welfare and 



428 ILLUSTRATIVE DOCUMENTS. 

prosperity, will, we flatter ourselves, render it not improper in us, 
barristers and attorneys at law in the province of Massachusetts 
Bay, to address your Excellency upon your removal from us, with 
this testimonial of our sincere respect and esteem. 

The various important characters of Legislator, Judge and first 
Magistrate over this province, in which, by the suffrages of your 
fellow-subjects, and by the royal favor of the best of kings, your 
great abilities, adorned with a uniform purity of principle, and in- 
tegrity of conduct, have been eminently distinguished, must excite 
the esteem and demand the grateful acknowledgments of every 
true lover of his country, and friend to virtue. 

The present perplexed state of our public affairs, we are sensi- 
ble, must render your departure far less disagreeable to you than it 
is to us,— we assure you, sir, we feel the loss ; but when, in the 
amiable character of your successor, we view a fresh instance of 
the paternal goodness of our most gracious sovereign ; when we 
reflect on the probability that your presence at the court of Great 
Britain, will afford you an opportunity of employing your interests 
more successfully for the relief of this province, and particularly of 
the town of Boston, under their present distresses, we find a conso- 
lation which no other human source could afford. Permit us, sir, 
most earnestly to solicit the exertion of all your distinguished 
abilities in favor of your native town and country, upon this truly 
unhappy and distressing occasion. 

We sincerely wish you a prosperous voyage, a long continua- 
tion of health and felicity, and the highest rewards of the good 
and faithful. 

We are, sir, with the most cordial affection, esteem and 
respect, 

Your Excellency's most obedient and very humble servants, 

Robert Achmuty, Andrew Cazneau, 

Jonathan Sewall, Daniel Leonard, 

Samuel Fitch, John Lowell, 

Samuel Quincy, Daniel Oliver, 

William Pynchon, Sampson S. Blowers, 

James Putnam, Shearjashub Brown, 

Benjamin Gridlej'^, Daniel Bliss, 

Abel Willard, Samuel Porter, 



ILLUSTRATIVE DOCUMENTS. 429 

David Ingersoll, John Sprague, 

Jeremiah D. Rogers, Rufus Chandler, 

David Gorham, Thomas Danforth, 

Samuel Sewall, Ebenezer Bradish. 

From the Essex Gazette of June 14, 1774. 

Messrs. Hall : 

As it is generally known that an Address from the Merchants, 
Traders and others, in the town of Salem, to the late Governor 
Hutchinson, was signed by numbers of gentlemen belonging to the 
town ; and it being as well known that his Excellency gave his 
answer to the same, it remains now a matter of great speculation, 
especially amongst those of the town of Boston who were foremost 
in promoting a plan so apparently beneficial in the present exigency 
of affairs in this province, what sufficient reason can be assigned 
by the subscribers, (contrary to the very design of such an address,) 
for then not making it public. Many conjectures might be admitted 
upon this matter, not to the honor of the concerned, which we 
shall omit for the present. Yours, 

Z. Y. 1 

From the Essex Gazette of June 1, 1775. 

Salem, May 30, 1775. 
Whereas we the subscribers did some time since sign an address 
to Governor Hutchinson, which, though prompted to by the best 
intentions, has, nevertheless, given great offence to our country : 
We do now declare, that we were so far from designing by that 
action, to show our acquiescence in those acts of Parliament so 
universally and justly odious to all America, that on the contrary, 
we hoped we might in that way contribute to their repeal ; though 
now to our sorrow we find ourselves mistaken. And we do now 
further declare, that we never intended the offence which this ad- 
dress has occasioned ; that if we had foreseen such an event we 
should never have signed it; as it always has been and now is our 
wish to live in harmony with our neighbors, and our serious de- 
termination is to promote to the utmost of our power the liberty, 
the welfare, and happiness of our country, which is inseparably 
connected with our own. 



430 ILLUSTRATIVE DOCUMENTS. 

John Nutting, E. A. Holyoke, 

N. Goodale, William Pynchon, 

Ebenezer Putnam, Thomas Barnard, 

Francis Cabot, Nathaniel Dabney, 

N. Sparhawk, William Pickman, 

Andrew Dalglish, C. Gayton Pickman. 

In Committee of Safety, Salem, May 30, 1775.— The declar- 
ation, of which the above is a copy, being presented and read, it 
was voted unanimously that the same was satisfactory ; and that 
the said gentlemen ought to be received and treated as real friends 
to this country. 

By order of the Committee, 

Richard Derby, Jr., Chairman. 

In the same paper of June 1, 1775, immediately following the 
above, is a communication to the Committee of Safety, from the 
late Rev. Thomas Barnard, dated May 25, 1775 :— 

Gentlemen : 

A suspicion of being inimical to those with whom we are con- 
nected in society, and whom we esteem and love, cannot but give 
severe pain to a generous mind. Unhappily, I have been viewed 
by my countrymen in a light so disagreeable. The address which 
I signed to Governor Hutchinson upon his leaving this province, I 
signed with no party views, with no design whatever of injuring 
that country with the prosperity of which my dearest human in- 
terests are closely connected, but with strong hopes of promoting 
the lasting peace and welfare of my native land. But I own, my 
fond expectations arising therefrom have been disappointed. The 
cause of America I look upon capable of full defence by the voice 
of justice and the British constitution ; and shall be ever ready to 
support it in that way which the united wisdom of the continent 
shall dictate. 

Such are my sentiments, and upon the strength of them I would 
request of my countrymen to throw the veil of charity and forgive- 
ness over any incautious action of mine, which may have led them 
to think unfavorably of me, and to grant me a place in their 
esteem, which I shall ever think myself happy in deserving. 

Thomas Barnard, Jr. 



ILLUSTRATIVE DOCUMENTS. 431 

In Committee of Safety, Salem, May 25, 1775.— The declara- 
tion, of which the above is a copy, being presented and read, it was 
voted unanimously that the same was satisfactory ; and that the 
said gentleman ought to be received and treated as a real friend to 
his country. 

By order of the Committee, 

Richard Derby, Jr., Chairman. 

From the Essex Gazette, June 14, 1774. 

Last Saturday, (June 11th, 1774,) the following address was 
presented to his Excellency the Governor : — 

To his Excellency Thomas Gage, Esq., Captain-General, Governor 

and Commander-in-Chief of the Province of Massachusetts 

Bay in New England, and Lieutenant-General of his Majesty's 

Forces. 
May it please your Excellency : 

We, merchants and others, inhabitants of the ancient town of 
Salem, beg leave to approach your Excellency with our most 
respectful congratulations on your arrival in this place. 

We are deeply sensible of his Majesty's paternal care and 
affection to this province, in the appointment of a person of your 
Excellency's experience, wisdom and moderation, in these trouble- 
some and difficult times. 

We rejoice that this town is graciously distinguished for that 
spirit, loyalty, and reverence for the laws, which is equally our glory 
and happiness. 

From that public spirit and warm zeal to promote the general 
happiness of men, which mark the great and good, we are led to 
hope under your Excellency's administration for every thing that 
may promote the peace, prosperity, and real welfare of this pro- 
vince. 

We beg leave to commend to your Excellency's patronage the 
trade and commerce of this place, which, from a full protection of 
the liberties, persons and properties of individuals, cannot but 
flourish. 

And we assure your Excellency we will make it our constant 
endeavors by peace, good order, and a regard for the laws, as far 
as in us lies, to render your station and residence easy and happy> 



432 



ILLUSTRATIVE DOCUM,ENTS, 



John Sargent, 
Jacob Ashton, 
William Wetmore, 
James Grant, 
Henry Higginson, 
David Britton, 
P. G. Kast, 
Weld Gardner, 
Nathaniel Daubney, 
Richard Nicholls, 
William Cabot, 
Cabot Gerrish, 
William Gerrish, 
Rowland Savage, 
William Lilly, 
Jonathan Goodhue, 
Nathan Goodale, 
William Pickman, 
C. Gayton Pickman, 
Nathaniel Sparhawk, 
William Vans, 
Timothy Orne, 
Richard Routh, 
Stephen Higginson, 



John Prince, 
George Deblois, 
Andrew Dalglish, 
Joseph Blaney, 
Archelaus Putnam, 
Samuel Porter, 
Thomas Poynton, 
Samuel Flagg, 
Benjamin Lynde, 
William Browne, 
John Turner, 
P. Frye, 
Francis Cabot, 
William Pynchon, 
John Fisher, 
John Mascarene, 
E. A. Holyoke, 
Jos. Bowditch, 
Ebenezer Putnam, 
S. Curwen, 
John Nutting, 
Jos. Dowse, 
Benjamin Pickman, 
Henry Gardner, 



Tht " Loyal Address fkom the Gentlemen and Principal Inhab- 
itants OF Boston to Governor Gage on his departure for 
England, October 6, 1775," was signed as follows : 



John Erving, 
Thomas Hutchinson, jr., 
Silvester Gardiner, 
Wm. Bowes, 
John Timmins, 
Nathaniel Coffin, 
John Winslow, jr., 
Alexander Bymer, 
Robert Hallowell, 
Robert Jarvis, 
David Phipe, 



John Tayler, 
Archibald McNeal, 
Francis Green, 
Benjamin Davis, 
John Sampson, 
William Tayler, 
John Inman, 
Wm. Perry, 
John Gore, 
Isaac Winslow, jr., 
Thomas Courtney, 



ILLUSTRATIVE DOCUMENTS. 



433 



John Love, 
Hugh Tarbett, 
Nathaniel Perkins, 
John Powell, 
James Selkrig, 
Archibald Cunningham, 
William Cazneau, 
David Barton, 
John Semple, 
Henry Lawton, 
William Brattle. 
John Troutbeck, 
Stephen Greenleaf, 
William Weaker, 
James Perkins, 
Phillip Dumaresque, 
Joshua Loring, jr., 
Henry Lloyd, 
William Lee Perkins, 
George Leonard, 
Thomas Brinley, 
Daniel Hubbard, 
Samuel Fitch, 
John Atkinson, 
Joseph Turin, 
Samuel Hirst Sparhawk, 
Ebenezer Brigham, 
William Codner, 
Jonathan Snelling, 
Benjamin Gridley, 
Gilbert Deblois, 
Edward Hutchinson, 
Miles Whitworth, 
Daniel McMasters, 
John Hunt, 3d, 
James Lloyd, 
William McAlpine, 
John Greecart, 



William Dickerson, 
William Hunter, 
Robert Semple, 
John Joy, 

Gregory Townsend, 
Isaac Winslow, 
Byfield Lyde, 
Richard Clarke, 
Benjamin Fanieul, jr., 
Thomas Amory, 
George Brindley, 
Ralph Inman, 
Edward Winslow, 
Benjamin M. Holmes, 
William Jackson, 
Richard Green, 
James Murray, 
Joseph Scott, 
Peter Johonnot, 
Nathaniel Gary, 
Martin Gay, 
Samuel Hughes, 
William Coffin, jr., 
Adino Paddock, 
Andrew Cazneau, 
Henry Lindall, 
Theophilus Lillie, 
Henry Barnes, 
M. B. Goldthwait, ~ 
Lewis Gray, 
Nathaniel Brinley, 
John Jeffries, jr., 
Archibald Bowman, 
Jonathan Simpson, 
Nathaniel Tayler, 
James Anderson, 
Lewis Deblois. 



55 



434 ILLUSTRATIVE DOCUMENTS. 

The Loyal Address to Governor Gage on his departute, October 
14, 1775, OF THOSE Gentlemen who were driven from their 
Habitations m the Country to the Town of Boston, was 

SIGNED BY the FOLLOWING PERSONS : 

John Chandler, Jonathan Stearns, 

James Putnam, Ward Chipman, 

Peter Oliver, sen., William Chandler, 

Seth Williams, jr., Thomas Foster, 

Charles Curtis, Pelham Winslow, 

Samuel Pine, Daniel Oliver, 

David Phips, Edward Winslow, jr.^ 

Richard Saltonstall, Nathaniel Chandler, 

Peter Oliver, jr., James Putnam, jr. 

CONSPIRACY ACT. 

An Act to confiscate the estates of certain notorious conspirators 
against the government and liberties of the inhabitants of the late 
province, now state, of Massachusetts Bay. 
Whereas the several persons hereinafter mentioned, have wick- 
edly conspired to overthrow and destroy the constitution and gov- 
ernment of the late province of Massachusetts Bay, as established 
by the charter agreed upon by and between their late majesties 
William and Mary, late King and Queen of England, etc., and the 
inhabitants of said province, now state, of Massachusetts Bay ; and 
also to reduce the said inhabitants under the absolute power and 
domination of the present Icing, and of the parliament of Great 
Britain, and, as far as in them lay, have aided and assisted the 
same king and parliament in their endeavors to establish a despotic 
government over the said inhabitants : 

Sect. 1. Be it enacted by the Council and House of Repre- 
sentatives, in General Court assembled, and by the authority of the 
same, that Francis Bernard, baronet, Thomas Hutchinson, Esq., 
late governor of the late province, now state, of Massachusetts 
Bay, Thomas Oliver, Esq., late lieutenant governor, Harrison 
Grey, Esq., late treasurer, Thomas Flucker, Esq., late secretary, 
Peter Oliver, Esq., late chief justice, Foster Hutchinson, John Er- 
"^'^"gj V'i George Erving, William Pepperell, baronet, James 



ILLUSTRATIVE DOCUMENTS. 435 

Boutineau, Joshua Loring, Nathaniel Hatch, "William Browne, 
Richard Lechmere, Josiah Edson, Nathaniel Rea Thomas, Timo- 
thy Ruggles, John Murray, Abijah Willard, and Daniel Leonard, 
Esqs., late mandamus counsellors of said late province, William 
Burch, Henry Hulton, Charles Paxon, and Benjamin Hallowell, 
Esqs., late commissioners of the customs, Robert Auchmuty, Esq., 
late judge of the vice-admiralty court, Jonathan Sewall, Esq., late 
attorney general, Samuel Quincy, Esq., late solicitor general, 
Samuel Fitch, Esq., solicitor or counsellor at law to the board of 
commissioners, have justly incurred the forfeiture of all their prop- 
erty, rights and liberties, holden under and derived from the govern- 
ment and laws of this state ; and that each and every of the persons 
aforenamed and described, shall be held, taken, deemed and ad- 
judged to have renounced and lost all civil and political relation 
to this and the other United States of America, and be considered 
as aliens. 

Sect. 2. Be it enacted by the authority aforesaid, that all the 
goods and chattels, rights and credits, lands, tenements, and hered- 
itaments of every kind, of which any of the persons herein before 
named and described, were seized or possessed, or were entitled to 
possess, hold, enjoy, or demand, in their own right, or which any 
other person stood or doth stand seized or possessed of, or are or 
were entitled to have or demand to and for their use, benefit and 
behoof, shall escheat, enure and accrue to the sole use and benefit 
of the government and people of this state, and are accordingly 
hereby declared so to escheat, enure and accrue, and the said gov- 
ernment and people shall be taken, deemed and adjudged, and are 
accordingly hereby declared to be in the real and actual possession 
of all such goods, chattels, rights and credits, lands, tenements and 
hereditaments, without further inquiry, adjudication or determina- 
tion hereafter to be had j anything in the act, entitled, "An act 
for confiscating the effects of certain persons commonly called ab- 
sentees," or any other law, usage, or custom to the contrary not- 
withstanding ; provided always, that the escheat shall not be 
construed to extend to or operate upon, any goods, chattels, rights, 
credits, lands, tenements or hereditaments, of which the persons 
afore named and described, or some other, in their right and to 
their use, have not been seized or possessed, or entitled to be seized 



436 ILLUSTRATIVE DOCUMENTS. 

or possessed, or to have or demand as aforesaid, since the nineteenth 
day of April, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred 
and seventy-five. — [Passed Jipril 30, 1779. JYot revised.} 



STATE OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

An Act for confiscating the estates of certain persons commonly 
called absentees. 
"Whereas every government hath a right to command the per- 
sonal services of all its members, whenever the exigencies of the 
state shall require it, especially in times of an impending or actual 
invasion, no member thereof can then withdraw himself from the 
jurisdiction of the government, and thereby deprive it of the bene- 
fit of his personal services, without justly incurring the forfeiture 
of all his property, rights and liberties, holden under and derived 
from that constitution of government, to the support of which he hath 
refused to afford his aid and assistance : and whereas the king of 
Great Britain did cause the parliament thereof to pass divers acts 
in direct violation of the fundamental rights of the people of this 
and of the other United States of America ; particularly one cer- 
tain act to vacate and annul the charter of this government, the 
great compact made and agreed upon between his royal predeces- 
sors and our ancestors ; and one other act, declaring the people of 
said states to be out of his protection ; and did also levy war 
against them, for the purpose of erecting and establishing an arbi- 
trary and despotic government over them ; whereupon it became 
the indispensable duty of all the people of said states forthwith to 
unite in defence of their common freedom, and by arms to oppose 
the fleets and armies of the said king ; yet nevertheless, divers of 
the members of this and of the other United States of America, 
evilly disposed, or regardless of their duty towards their country, 
did withdraw themselves from this, and other of the said United 
States, into parts and places under the acknowledged authority and 
dominion of the said king of Great Britain, or into parts and places 
within the limits of the said states, but in the actual possession and 
under the power of the fleets or armies of the said king ; thereby 
abandoning the liberties of their country, seeking the protection of 
the said king, and of his fleets or armies, and aiding or giving en- 



ILLUSTRATIVE DOCUMENTS. 437 

couragement and countenance to their operations against the Uni- 
ted States aforesaid: 

Sect. 1. Be it enacted by the Council and House of Repre- 
sentatives, in General Court assembled, and by the authority of 
the same, that every inhabitant and member of the late province, 
now state, of Massachusetts Bay, or of any other of the late prov- 
inces or colonies, now United States of America, who, since the 
nineteenth day of April, Anno Domini one thousand seven hun- 
dred and seventy-five, hath levied war or conspired to levy war 
against the government and people of any of the said provinces or 
colonies, or United States ; or who hath adhered to the said king 
of Great Britain, his fleets or armies, enemies of the said provinces 
or colonies or United States, or hath given to them aid or comfort; 
or who, since the said nineteenth day of April, Anno Domini one 
thousand seven hundred and seventy-five, hath withdrawn, without 
the permission of the legislative or executive authority of this or 
some other of the said United States, from any of the said prov- 
inces or colonies, or United States, into parts and places under the 
acknowledged authority and dominion of the said king of Great 
Britain, or into any parts or places within the limits of any of the 
said provinces, colonies, or United States, being in the actual pos- 
session and under the power of the fleets or armies of the said 
king ; or who, before the said nineteenth day of April, Anno Domini 
one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five, and after the arrival 
of Thomas Gage, Esq., (late commander-in-chief of all his Britan- 
nic Majesty's forces in North America,) at Boston, the metropolis of 
this state, did withdraw from their usual places of habitation within 
this state, into the said town of Boston, with an intention to seek 
and obtain the protection of the said Thomas Gage and of the said 
forces, then and there being under his command ; and who hath 
died in any of the said parts or places, or hath not returned into 
some one of the said United States, and been received as a subject 
thereof, and (if required) taken an oath of allegiance to such 
states, shall be held, taken, deemed and adjudged to have freely 
renounced all civil and political relation to each and every of the 
said United States, and be considered as an alien. 

Sect. 2, And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, 
that all the goods and chattels, rights and credits, lands, tenements, 



438 ILLUSTRATIVE DOCUMENTS. 

hereditaments of every kind, of which any of the persons herein 
before described were seized or possessed, or were entitled to pos- 
sess, hold, enjoy or demand, in their own right, or which any other 
person stood or doth stand seized or possessed of, or are or were 
enthlcd to have or demand to and for their use, benefit and be- 
hoof, shall escheat, enure and accrue to the sole use and benefit of 
the government and people of this state, and are accordingly here- 
by declared so to escheat, enure and accrue. — [Passed April 30, 
1779. JVot revised.'] 

MANDAMUS COUNSELLORS. 

Salem, Aug. 9, 1774. The following were appointed by his 
majesty, counsellors of this province by writ of mandamus,* viz : — 

Col. Thomas Oliver, Lieut. Governor, President ; Peter Oliver, 
Thomas Flucker, Foster Hutchinson, Thomas Hutchinson, Jr. 
Harrison Gray, Judge Samuel Danforth, Col. John Erving, Jr. 
James Russell, Timothy Ruggles, Joseph Lee, Isaac Winslow, Israel 
Williams, Col. George Watson, Nathaniel Ray Thomas, Timothy 
Woodbridge, William Vassall, William Browne, Joseph Greene, 
James Boidineau, Andrew Oliver, Col. Josiah Edson, Richard 
Lechmere, Commodore Josliua Loring, John Worthington, Timo- 
thy Paine, William Pepperell, Jeremiah Powell, Jonathan Simp- 
son, Col. John Murray, Daniel Leonard, Thomas Palmer, Col. 
Isaac Royall, Robert Hooper, Abijah Willard, Capt. John Er- 
ving, jr. 

STATE OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

An Act to prevent the return to this state of certain persons 
therein named, and others who have left this state or either of 
the United States, and joined the enemies thereof. 
Whereas Thomas Hutchinson, Esq., late governor of this state, 
Francis Bernard, Esq., formerly governor of this state, Thomas 
Oliver, Esq., late lieutenant governor of this state, Timothy Rug- 
gles, Esq., of Hardwick, in the county of Worcester, William Ap- 
thorp, merchant, Gibbs Atkins, cabinet maker, John Atkinson, John 
Amory, James Anderson, Thomas Apthorp, David Black, William 
Burton, William Bowes, George Brindley, Robert Blair, Thomas 
Brindley, James Barrick, merchant, Thomas Brattle, Esq., Samp- 

* Those whose names are in italics alone took the oath of office. 



ILLUSTRATIVE DOCUMENTS. 439 

son Salter Blowers, Esq., James Bruce, Ebenezer Bridgham, Alex- 
ander Brymer, Edward Berry, merchants, William Burch, Esq., 
late commissioner of the customs, Mather Byles, Jun., clerk, Wil- 
liam Codner, book-keeper, Edward Cox, merchant, Andrew 
Cazneau, Esq., barrister at law, Henry Canner, clerk, Thomas 
Courtney, tailor, Richard, Clark, Esq., Isaac Clark, physician, 
Benjamin Church, physician, John Coffin, distiller, John Clark, 
physician, William Coffin, Esq., Nathaniel Coffin, Esq., Jonathan 
Clark, merchant, Archibald Cunningham, shop-keeper, Gilbert 
Deblois, merchant, Lewis Deblois, merchant, Philip Dumaresque, 
merchant, Benjamin Davis, merchant, John Erving, Jun., Esq., 
George Erving, Esq., Edward Foster and Edward Foster, Jun., 
blacksmiths, Benjamin Faneuil, Jun., merchant, Thomas Flucker, 
Esq., late secretary for Massachusetts Bay, Samuel Fitch, Esq., 
Wilfret Fisher, carter, James Forrest, merchant, Lewis Gray, mer- 
chant, Francis Green, merchant, Joseph Green, Esq., Sylvester 
Gardiner, Esq., Harrison Gray, Esq., late treasurer of Massachu- 
setts Bay, Harrison Gray, Jun., clerk to the treasurer, Joseph 
Goldthwait, Esq., Martin Gay, founder, John Gore, Esq., Benjamin 
Hallowell, Esq., Robert Hallowell, Esq., Thomas Hutchinson, Jun., 
Esq., Benjamin Gridley, Esq., Frederick William Geyer, merchant, 
John Greenlaw, shop-keeper, David Green, merchant, Elisha 
Hutchinson, Esq., James Hall, mariner, Foster Hutchinson, Esq., 
Benjamin Mulbury Holmes, distiller, Samuel Hodges, book-keeper, 
Henry Halson, Esq., Hawes Hatch, wharfinger, John Joy, house- 
wright, Peter Johonnot, distiller, William Jackson, merchant, John 
Jeffries, physician, Henry Laughton, merchant, James Henderson, 
trader, John Hinston, yeoman, Christopher Hatch, mariner, Robert 
Jarvis, mariner, Richard Lechmere, Esq., Edward Lyde, merchant, 
Henry Lloyd, Esq., George Leonard, miller, Henry Leddle, book- 
keeper, Archibald McNeil, baker, Christopher Minot, tide-waiter, 
James Murray, Esq., William Mc Alpine, bookbinder, Thomas 
Mitchell, mariner, William Martin, Esq., John Knutton, tallow- 
chandler, Thomas Knight, shop-keeper, Samuel Prince, merchant, 
Adino Paddock, Esq., Charles Paxon, Esq., Sir William Pepperell, 
baronet, John Powell, Esq., William Lee Perkins, physician, Na- 
thaniel Perkins, Esq., Samuel Quincy, Esq., Owen Richards, tide- 
waiter, Samuel Rogers, merchant, Jonathan Simpson, Esq., George 



440 ILLUSTRATIVE DOCUMENTS. 

Spooner, merchant, Edward Stowe, mariner, Richard Smith, mer- 
chant, Jonathan Snelling, Esq., David Silsby, trader, Samuel Sew- 
all, Esq., Abraham Savage, tax-gatherer, Joseph Scott, Esq., 
Francis Skinner, clerk to the late council, William Simpson, mer- 
chant, Richard Sherwin, saddler, Henry Smith, merchant, John 
Semple, merchant, Robert Semple, merchant, Thomas Selkrig, 
merchant, James Selkrig, merchant, Robert Service, trader, Simon 
Tufts, trader, Arodi Thayer, late marshal to the admiralty court, 
Nathaniel Taylor, deputy naval officer, John Troutbeck, clerk, 
Gregory Townsend, Esq., William Taylor, merchant, W^illiam 
Vassal, Esq., Joseph Taylor, merchant, Joshua Upham, Esq., 
William W^alter, clerk, Samuel Waterhouse, merchant, Isaac 
Winslow, merchant, John Winslow, jr., merchant, David Willis, 
mariner, Obadiah Whiston, blacksmith, Archibald Wilson, trader, 
John W^hite, mariner, W^illiam Warden, peruke-maker, Nathaniel 
Mills, John Hicks, John Howe, and John Fleming, printers, all of 
Boston, in the county of Suffolk, Robert Auchmuty, Esq., Joshua 
Loring, Esq., both of Roxbury, in the same county, Samuel Golds- 
bury, yeoman, of W^rentham, in the county of Suffolk, Joshua 
Loring, jr., merchant, Nathaniel Hatch, Esq., both of Dorchester, 
in the same county, W^illiam Brown, Esq., Benjamin Pickman, 
Esq., Samuel Porter, Esq., John Sargeant, trader, all of Salem, in 
the county of Essex, Richard Saltonstall, Esq., of Haverhill, in the 
same county, Thomas Robie, trader, Benjamin Marston, merchant, 
both of Marblehead, in said county of Essex, Moses Badger, clerk, 
of Haverhill, aforesaid, Jonathan Sewall, Esq., John Vassal, Esq., 
David Phipps, Esq., John Nutting, carpenter, all of Cambridge, in 
the county of Middlesex, Isaac Roy all, Esq., of Med ford, in the 
same county, Henry Barnes, of Marlborough, in said county of 
Middlesex, merchant, Jeremiah Dummer Rogers, of Littleton in the 
same county, Esq., Daniel Bliss, of Concord, in the said county of 
Middlesex, Esq., Charles Russell, of Lincoln, in the same county, 
physician, Joseph Adams, of Townsend, in said county of Middle- 
sex, Thomas Danforth, of Charlestown, in said county, Esq., Joshua 
Smith, trader, of Townsend, in said county, Joseph Ashley, jr., 
gentleman, of Sunderland, Nathaniel Dickenson, gentleman, of 
Deerfield, Samuel Bliss, shopkeeper, of Greenfield, Roger Dicken- 
son, yeoman, Joshah Pomroy, physician, and Thomas Cutler, 



ILLUSTRATIVE DOCUMENTS. 441 

gentleman, of Hatfield, Jonathan Bliss, Esq., of Springfield, Wil- 
liam Galway, yeoman, of Conway, Elijah Williams, attorney at 
law, of Deerfield, James Oliver, gentleman, of Conway, all in the 
county of Hampshire, Pelham Winslow, Esq., Cornelius White, 
mariner, Edward Winslow, jr., Esq., all of Plymouth, in the county 
of Plymouth, Peter Oliver, Esq., Peter Oliver, jr , physician, both 
of Middleborough, in the same county, Josiah Edson, Esq., of 
Bridgewater, in the said county of Plymouth, Lieutenant Daniel 
Dunbar, of Halifax, in the same county, Charles Curtis, of Scitu- 
ate, in the said county of Plymouth, gentleman, Nathaniel Ray 
Thomas, Esq., Israel Tilden, Caleb Carver, Seth Bryant, Benjamin 
Walker, Gideon W^alker, Zera Walker, Adam Hall, tertius, Isaac 
Joice, Joseph Phillips, Daniel White, jr., Cornelius White, tertius, 
Melzar Carver, Luke Hall, Thomas Decrov/, John Baker, jr., all 
of Marshfield, in the said county of Plymouth, Gideon White, jr., 
Daniel Leonard, Esq., Seth Williams, jr., gentleman, Solomon 
Smith, boatman, all of Taunton, in the county of Bristol, Thomas 
Gilbert, Esq., Perez Gilbert, Ebenezer Hathaway, jr.. Lot Strange, 
the third, Zebedee Terree, Bradford Gilbert, all of Freetown, in 
the same county, Joshua Broomer, Shadrach Hathaway, Calvin 
Hathaway, Luther Hathaway, Henry Tisdel, William Burden, 
Levi Chace, Shadrach Chase, Richard Holland, Ebenezer Phillips, 
Samuel Gilbert, gentleman, Thomas Gilbert, jr., yeoman, both of 
Berkley, in the said county of Bristol, Ammi Chace, Caleb Whea- 
ton, Joshua Wilbore, Lemuel Bourn, gentleman, Thomas Perry, 
yeoman, David Atkins, laborer, Samuel Perry, mariner, Stephen 
Perry, laborer, John Blackwell, jr., laborer, Francis Finney, la- 
borer, and Nehemiah Webb, mariner, all of Sandwich, in the 
county of Barnstable, Eldad Tupper, of Dartmouth, in the county 
of Bristol, laborer, Silas Perry, laborer, Seth Perry, mariner, Eli- 
sha Bourn, gentleman, Thomas Bumpus, yeoman, Ephraim Ellis, 
jr., yeoman, Edw^ard Bourn, gentleman, Nicholas Cobb, laborer, 
William Bourn, cordwainer, all of Sandwich, in the county of 
Barnstable, and Seth Bangs, of Harwich, in the county of Barn- 
stable, mariner, John Chandler, Esq., James Putnam, Esq., Rufus 
Chandler, gentleman, W^illiam Paine, physician, Adam Walker, 
blacksmith, William Chandler, gentleman, all of Worcester, in the 
county of Worcester, John W^alker, gentleman, David Bush, yeo- 

56 



442 ILLUSTRATIVE DOCUMENTS. 

man, both of Shrewsbury, in the same county, Abijah Willard, 
Esq., Abel Willard, Esq., Joseph House, yeoman, all of Lancaster, 
in the said county of Worcester, Ebenezer Cutler, trader, James 
Edgar, yeoman, both of Northbury, in the same county, Daniel Ol- 
iver, Esq., Richard Ruggles, yeoman, Gardner Chandler, trader, 
Joseph Ruggles, gentleman, Nathaniel Ruggles, yeoman, all of 
Hardwick, in the said county of Worcester, John Ruggles, yeo- 
man, of said Hardwick, John Eager, yeoman, Ebenezer Whipple, 
Israel Conkay, John Murray, Esq., of Rutland, in said county of 
Worcester, Daniel Murray, gentleman, Samuel Murray, gentle- 
man, Michael Martin, trader, of Brookfield, in the said county of 
Worcester, Thomas Beaman, gentleman, of Petersham, in the same 
county, Nathaniel Chandler, gentleman, John Bowen, gentleman, 
of Princeton, in the said county of Worcester, James Crage, gen- 
tleman, of Oakham, in the same county, Thomas Mullins, black- 
smith, of Leominster, in the said county of Worcester, Francis 
Waldo, Esq., Arthur Savage, Esq., Jeremiah Pote, mariner, Thom- 
as Ross, mariner, James Wlldridge, mariner, George Lyde, cus- 
tom house officer, Robert Pagan, merchant, Thomas Wyer, mari- 
ner, Thomas Coulson, merchant, John Wiswall, clerk, Joshua 
Eldridge, mariner, Thomas Oxnard, merchant, Edward Oxnard, 
merchant, William Tyng, Esq., John Wright, merchant, Samuel 
Longfellow, mariner, all of Falmouth, in the county of Cumber- 
land, Charles Callahan, of Pownalborough, in the county of Lin- 
coln, mariner, Jonas Jones of East Hoosuck, in the county of 
Berkshire, David Ingersoll, of Great Barrington, Esq., in the same 
county, Jonathan Prindall, Benjamin Noble, Francis Noble, Elisha 
Jones, of Pittsfield, in the said county of Berkshire, John Graves, 
yeoman, Daniel Brewer, yeoman, both of Pittsfield, aforesaid, 
Richard Square, of Lanesborough, in the said county of Berkshire, 
Ephraim Jones, of East Hoosuck, in the same county, Lewis Hub- 
bel, and many other persons have left this state, or some other of 
the United States of America, and joined the enemies thereof and 
of the United States of America, thereby not only depriving these 
states of their personal services at a time when they ought to have 
afforded their utmost aid in defending the said states, against the 
invasions of a cruel enemy, but manifesting an inimical disposition 
to the said states, and a design to aid and abet the enemies thereof 



ILLUSTRATIVE DOCUMENTS. 443 

in their wicked purposes, and whereas many dangers may accrue 
to this state and the United States, if such persons should be again 
admitted to reside in this state : 

Sect. 1. Be it therefore enacted by the Council and House of 
Representatives, in general court assembled, and by the authority 
of the same, that if either of the said persons, or any other person, 
though not specially named in this act, who have left this state, or 
either of said states, and joined the enemies thereof as aforesaid, 
shall, after the passing this act, voluntarily return to this state, it 
shall be the duty of the sheriff of the county, and of the selectmen, 
committees of correspondence, safety, and inspection, grand jurors, 
constables, and tythingmen, and other inhabitants of the town 
wherein such person or persons may presume to come, and they 
are hereby respectively empowered and directed forthwith to appre- 
hend and carry such person or persons before some justice of the 
peace wdthin the county, who is hereby required to commit him or 
them to the common gaol within the county, there in close custody 
to remain until he shall be sent out of the state, as is hereinafter 
directed ; and such justice is hereby directed to give immediate in- 
formation thereof to the board of war of this state : and the said 
board of war are hereby empowered and directed to cause such 
person or persons so committed, to be transported to some part or 
place within the dominions, or in the possession of the forces of the 
king of Great Britain, as soon as may be after receiving such in- 
formation ; those who are able, at their own expense, and others 
at the expense of this state, and for this purpose to hire a vessel 
or vessels, if need be. 

Sect. 2. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, 
that if any person or persons, who shall be transported as aforesaid, 
shall voluntarily return into this state, without liberty first had and 
obtained from the general court, he shall, on conviction thereof 
before the superior court of judicature, court of assize and general 
gaol delivery, suffer the pains of death without benefit of clergy. — 
\_Passed, Septernber, 1778.] 

WORCESTER RESOLUTIONS RELATING TO THE ABSENTEES 
AND REFUGEES. 

The following votes were passed by the citizens of Worcester, 



444 ILLUSTRATIVE DOCUMENTS. 

May 19, 1783, and contain the substance of their doings relative 
to the refugees : 

Voted, — That in the opinion of this town, it would be ex- 
tremely dangerous to the peace, happiness, liberty and safety of 
these states, to suffer those, who, the moment the bloody banners 
were displayed, abandoned their native land, turned parricides, and 
conspired to involve their country in tumult, ruin and blood, to 
become the subjects of and reside in this government ; that it 
would be not only dangerous, but inconsistent with justice, policy, 
our past laws, the public faith, and the principles of a free and 
independent state, to admit them ourselves, or have them forced 
upon us without our consent. 

Voted, — That in the opinion of this town, this commonwealth 
ought, with the utmost caution, to naturalize or in any other way 
admit as subjects a common enemy, a set of people who have been 
by the united voice of the continent, declared outlaws, exiles, 
aliens and enemies, dangerous to its political being and happiness. 

Voted, — That while there are thousands of the innocent, peace- 
able and defenceless inhabitants of these states, whose property 
has been destroyed and taken from them in the course of the war, 
for whom no provision is made, to whom there is no restoration of 
estates, no compensation for losses; that it would be unreasonable, 
cruel and unjust, to suffer those who were the wicked occasion of 
those losses,, to obtain a restitution of the estates they refused to 
protect, and which they have abandoned and forfeited to their 
country. 

Voted, — That it is the expectation of this town, and the 
earnest request of their committees of correspondence, inspection 
and safety, that they, with care and diligence, will observe the 
movements of our only remaining enemies ; that until the further 
order of government, they will, with decision, spirit and firmness, 
endeavor to enforce and carry into execution the several laws of 
this commonwealth, respecting these enemies to our rights, and the 
rights of mankind ; give information should they know of any 
obtruding themselves into any part of this state, suffer none to 
remain in this town, but cause to be confined immediately, for 
the purpose of transportation according to law, any that may 
presume to enter it. 



EVACUATING LOYALISTS. 



444 a 



List of The Inhabitants of Boston who^ on the Evacua- 
tion OF THE British in March, 1776, removed to Halifax 
with the Army. 



No. of family. 

Lieut Gov. Oliver and servts. 6 



Council, Sfc. 

Peter Oliver and niece, 2 

Harrison Gray and family, 5 

Timothy Ruggles and sons, 3 

Foster Hutchinson and fam. 13 

Josiah Edson, 1 

John Murray and family, 7 

Rich'd Lechmere and fam. 12 

John Erving and family, 9 

Nath'l Ray Thomas and son, 2 

Abijah Willard and sons, 3 

Daniel Leonard and family, 9 

Nath'l Hatch and family, 7 

George Erving and family, 6 



Custom House^ 

Henry Hutton and family, 12 

Charles Paxton and family, 6 

Benj. Hallowell and family, 7 
Sam'l Waterhouse, Sec'y, 

and family, 7 

James Porter, Comp. Gen'l, 1 

Walter Barrell, Insp. Gen'l, 6 

James Murray, Inspector, 7 

William Woolen, Inspector, 2 
Edw'd Winslow, Collector, 

Boston, 1 
Charles Dudley, Coll., New- 
port, 2 
George Meserve, Coll., Pis- 

cataqua, 1 
Rob't Hallowell, ComptroL, 

Boston, 6 

Nath'l Coffin, Cashier, 4 



Arthur Savage. Surveyorj &c. 6 



56* 



, No. of family. 

Eben Bridgham, Tide Sur- 
veyor, 8 
Nath'l Taylor, Deputy Naval 

Officer, 2 

Sam'l Mather, Clerk, 3 

Sam'l Lloyd, Clerk, 6 

Christ'n Minot, Landwaiter, 1 

Ward Chipman, Clerk Sol. 1 

Rob't Beebell, Clk. Collr. 1 
Skinner, Cookson, and Ev" 

ans. Messengers, 3 

James Barick, Clerk Inspr. 5 

John Ciely, Tidesman, 4 
John Sam'l Pettet, Tidesman, 6 

John Selby, Clerk, 2 

Edw'd Mulball, Tidesman, 1 

Hammond Green, do 1 

John Lewis, do 6 

Elkanah Cushman, do 1 

Edw'd Dwyer, Messenger, 3 

Sam'l Chadwal, Tidesman, 1 

Chandler, Landwaiter, 1 

Patterson, do 1 

Sam'l Sparhawk, Clerk, 5 
Isaac Massingham, Coxswain, 1 

Owen Richards, do 1 

Refugees. 

Ashley, Joseph, 1 

Anaods, Barret, 1 

Atkinson, John, Merchant, 4 

Atkins, Gibbs, 1 

Ayres, Eleanor, 3 

Allen, Eben'r, 8 

Bowes, W^m., Merchant, 4 

Brinley, Thomas, do 3 

Burton, Mary, Millmer, 2 

Bo wen, John, 2 

Blair, John, Baker, 1 

Bouwers, Arch'd, Acct. 1 



444 b 



EVACUATING LOYALISTS. 



Broderick, John, 3 

Butler, James, 2 
Brown, Thomas, Merchant, 6 

Byles, Rev. Dr. 5 

Barnard, John, 1 

Black, John, 7 

Baker, John, Jr. 1 

Badger, Rev. Moses, 1 

Beath, Mary, 4 

Butler, Gillam, 1 

Brandon, John, 2 

Brattle, Wm. 2 

Coffin, Wra. 2 
Carneau, And'w, Lawyer, 1 

Codner, Wm. 1 

Conner, Mrs. 2 
Cummins, A. and E., Milliners, 3 
Coffin, Wm., Jr., Merchant, 4 

Cutler, Eben'r, 1 

Campbell, Wra. 1 

Caner, Rev. Dr. 1 

Cook, Rob't, . 1 

Chandler, John, Esq. 1 
Chandler, Rul'us, Lawyer, 2 

Chandler, Nath'l, 1 

Chandler, Wm. 1 

Carver, Melzer, 1 

Cooley, John, 4 

Courtney, Thos. 11 

Carr, Mrs. 3 

Deblois, Gilbert, 5 

Dayley, John, 4 

Dunbar, Daniel, 1 

Danforth, Thos. 1 
Demaresque, Philip, Mercht. 8 

Deblois Lewis, 3 

Duncan, Alexander, 1 

Dayley, Francis, 1 

Dickenson, Nath'l, 1 

Draper, Margaret, 5 

Dougherty, Edw'd, 2 

Deonezzau, Adam, 7 

Duelly, Wm. 3 

Emerson, John, 1 

Elton, Peter, 7 



Fisher, Willfree, 4 

Foster, Thos. 1 

Fanieul, Benj., Merchant, 3 

Fitch, Samuel, Lawyer, 7 
Foster, Edw'd, Blacksmith, 7 

Fall, Thomas, 5 

Foster, Edw'd, Jr. 5 

Forest, James, 7 

Flucker, Mrs. 6 

Gilbert, Thos. 1 

Gallop, Antill, 1 

Gray, Andrew, 1 

Gray, John, 3 

Goldsbury, Sara'l, 3 

Gardener, Dr. Sylvester, 8 

Gridley, Benj. 1 

Grison, Edmund, 2 

Gay, Martin, 3 

Gilbert, Sara'l, 1 

Grozart, John, 1 

Gray, Mary, 1 

Green, Francis, 8 

Greenwood, Sam'l, 5 

Grant, James, 1 

Griffen, Mrs. 3 

Gore, John, 3 

Griffin, Edmund, 4 

Hill, Wm. 17 

Hallowell, Rebecca, 4 

Hall, Luke, 1 

Henderson, James, 5 
House, Joseph, 
Hughes, Samuel, 
Hooper, Jacob, 

Hicks, , Printer, 

Hurlston, Richard, 

Holmes, Benj., Mulberry, 1 

Hatch, Hawes, 

Hale, Sam'l, 

Hester, John, 

Hutchinson, Mrs. 

Horn, Henry, 

Halferson, James, 

Heath, Wm. 

Jones, Mary, ' 



EVACUATING LOYALISTS, 



444 C 



Jarvis, Rob't, 1 

Intnan, John, 3 

Joy, John, 8 

Ireland, John, 2 

Jeffries, Dr. John, 6 

Johonnot, Peter, 1 

Jones, Mrs. 4 

Knovvlton, Margaret, 4 

King, Edw'd and Sam'l, 7 

Lazarus, Sam'l, 1 

Lovel, John, Senr. 5 

Leonard, George, 9 

Lisle, Mrs. 5 

Lillie, Theoph. 4 
Lateryche, Edwd. Golslen, 1 

Lyde, Byfield, 5 

Liddel, Henry, 4 

Laughton, Henry, 5 

Lloyd, Henry, 10 

Linkletter, Alex. 3 

Lowe, Charles, 2 

Loring, Joshua, Jr. 1 

Murray, Wm. 3 

Moody, John, Jr. 1 

McKown, John, 1 

McAlevine, Wm. 2 

Moody, John, 4 
McKown, John, of Boston, 5 

McDonald, Dennis, 1 

Mackey, Mrs. 1 

Mitchelson, David, 2 

McNiel, Arch'd, 13 

Marston, Benj. 1 

Moore, John, 1 

Miller, John, 5 

Mulcatry, Patrick, 4 

McKinsley, Mrs. 12 

Morrison, John, 1 
McMaster, Patrick and Dan'l, 3 

McMullin, Alex. 1 

Mitchell, Thos. 1 

Mills, , 2 

McCiintoch, Nathan, 1 
Nevin, Lazarus, and wife, 2 

O'Niel, Joseph, 4 



Oliver, Wm. Sandford, 1 

Oliver, Dr. Peier, 1 

Powel, John, 8 

PhilHps, Martha, 3 

Phipps, David, 11 

Pelham, Henry, 1 

Putnam, James, 7 

Paine, Sam'l, 1 

Perkins, Nath'l, 1 

Patterson, Wm. 3 

Phillips, Eben'r, 1 

Paddock, Adino. 9 

Pollard, Benj. 1 

Patten, George, 3 

Perkins, Wm. Lee, 4 

Price, Benj. 2 

Page, George, 1 

Rummer, Rich'd, 3 
Rogers, Jerem'h Dummer,^ 2 

Rogers, Samuel, 1 

Richardson, Miss, 1 

Rose, Peter, 1 

Read, Charles, 1 

Ramage, John, 1 

Routh, Richard, 6 

Rhoades, Henry, 5 

Russel, Nath'l, 3 

Richards, Mrs. 3 
Ruggles, John and Rich'd, 2 

Smith, Henry, 6 

Sullivan, George, 1 

Serjeant, John, 1 

Scott, Joseph, 3 

Simmonds, Wm. 3 

Stow, Edward, 4 

Sterling, Elizabeth, 1 

Sterling, Benj. Frederick, 1 

Simpson, John, 5 

Simpson, Jerem'h, 2 

Seraple, Robert, 4 

Stayner, Abigail, 3 

Stearns, Jonathan, 1 

Savage, Abraham, 1 

Saltonstall, Leverett, 1 

Service, Rob't, 5 



444 D 



EVACUATING LOYAI>ISTS. 



Snelling, Jona. 6 

Sullivan, Bartholomew, 2 

■Smith, Edward, 4 

Spooner, Eben'r, 1 

Shepherd, Joseph, 2 

Selkrig, James, 6 

Scammel, Thomas, 1 

Thomson, James, 1 

Taylor, Mrs. 6 

Terry, Zebedee, 1 

Tyng, Wm. 4 

Taylor, Wm. 2 

Winslow, Isaac, 11 

Winslow, Pelham, 1 

Winslow, John, 4 

Winslow, Mrs. Hannah, 4 

Winslow, Edward, 1 

Wilharas, Selh, 1 



Willis, David, 
Wittington, Wm. 
Warden, Wm. 
Williams, Job, 
Warren, Abr'm, 
Willard, Abel, 
Warden, Joseph, 
Willard, Abijah, 
Wheaton, Obadiah, 
Wheelwright, Joseph, 
Winnet, John, Jr. 
Wright, Daniel, 
Welsh, Peter, 
White, Gideon, 
Wilson, Arch'd, 
Welsh, James, 
Worrall, Thos. Grosby, 

Total, 926. 



From the Salem Gazette,, JVov. 6, 1783. 

List of Persons who have Died in Exile from the Massa- 
chusetts. 



Gov. Bernard, his lady, and son. 
Gov. Hutchinson, and son and 

daughter, 
Mrs. Oliver, his other daughter, 
A daughter of Mr. Thomas 

Hutchinson, Jr. 
Rev. Mr. Troutbeck, 
Mr. Bouteneau, 
Mr. Robinson, Commissioner, 
Mr. Wooten, 
Col. Royal, 
Commodore Loring, 
Mr. Nath'l Coffin, 
Mr. Joseph Green, 
Young Mr. Green, 
Mr. Willard, 
Mr. Evans, 

Mr. Thompson, of Medford, 
Mr. Wyer, of Newbury, 
Mr. Martin Howard, 
Capt. Poynton, of Salem, 



Rev. Mr. Sargeant and daughter, 

Lieut. Gov. Oliver's lady, 

Mrs. Gardiner, 

Mrs. Pepperrell,* 

Mrs. Amory, 

Mrs. Savage, 

Mrs. Paddock, 

Mrs. Jefferies, 

Mrs. Cordis, 

Mrs. Spry, 

Mrs. Prince, 

Mrs. Barrell, 

Miss Kitty Hutchinson^ 

Miss Sew all. 

Miss Fitch, 

Miss Fisher, 

Mr. Jolly Allen, 

Mr. Flucker, 

Mr. Robert Temple, 

Dr. Dabney, 

Mr. Vassal's daughter. 



* Wife of Andrew Pepperrel, Esq., 1st Dec, 1780, — he died in Lon-: 
don in the spring of 1783. He was a brother of Sir Wm. Pepperrellj 
Baronet. 






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NOTICES OF THE CURWENS. 



George Curwin, the first of the name in New England, came, 
as stated in the introduction, from Workington, Cumberland, Eng- 
land, where he was born December 10, 1610, and where, says 
Camden, " is the stately, castle-like seat of this ancient, knightly 
family.''^ He settled at Salem, and in company with the celebrated 
Hugh Peters laid the foundation of the mercantile enterprise of 
Salem, and first commenced building vessels in that port ; he was 
afterwards extensively engaged in commerce during the whole of 
his long life. His books of account, and his mercantile correspond- 
ence with Sir William Peake, (lord mayor of London in 1666,) 
show that he had embarked in the London trade previous to the 
year 165S. The late Rev. Dr. Bentley thus notices him in his Sketch 
of Salem, published in the Collections of the Massachusetts His- 
torical Society, in 1800 :— " This year ( 1685) Salem lost another 
eminent man, Capt. George Curwin, who came here in 1638 with 
his family, and was rich. He was often engaged in town affairs, 
and commanded a troop of horse. He was also a representative 
in the general court. There is a three-quarter po'iait of him in 
the hands of Samuel Curwen, Esq.,* son of the Rev. George Cur- 
win, and his great-grandson. He had a fine round forehead, large 
nostrils, high cheek bones, and gray eyes. His dress a wrought- 
flowing neckcloth, a sash covered with lace, a coat with short 
cuffs and reaching half way between the wrist and elbow, the 
shirt in plaits below ; an octagon ring and cane, which still 
remain." 

He died on the 3d of January, 1685, leaving no debts, and one 
of the largest estates that had been administered upon in the colony, 
which was inventoried at only j£5,964 19^. Id., but comprised be- 
sides the homestead, four dwelling-houses, four warehouses, and 
two wharves in Salem ; three farms in the vicinity, containing fif- 
teen hundred acres j a warehouse and wharf in Boston ; the ketches 

• Author of the foregoing journal. — Ed. 



446 NOTICES OF THE CUR WENS. 

George, Swallow, John, and William, valued at jGIOSO; in mer- 
chandise ^£2,232 j in gold and silver coin j£93 7^. Od., in English 
and New England money, and 621 ounces of plate. Among the 
wearing apparel inventoried, are a silver-laced cloth coat, a velvet 
ditto, a satin waistcoat, embroidered with gold, a troping scarf and 
hat band, golden topped and embroidered gloves, and a silver- 
headed cane, which still remains. 

In the settlement of the estate, Capt. Curwin's widow Eliza- 
beth, who was a daughter of Hon. Herbert Pelham, one of the 
council of assistants, and also sister-in-law of Governor Josiah 
Winslow, of Plymouth colony, claimed some plate given her by 
the lord mayor, by her father, and by the governor ; together with 
eight pounds in gold which her husband had received from Mr. Pope, 
being the "produce" of an Indian boy sent her by the governor and 
council from Plymouth. 

His five daughters married Hon. James Russell and Edward 
Lynde, Esq., of Boston, William Browne, jr., Esq., and Josiah 
Wolcott, Esq., of Salem, and President Wadsworth of Harvard 
College. 

Annexed is a view of the house erected by Capt. Curwin, in 
1642, still standing at the corner of Essex and North streets. It 
was altered by the late Richard Ward, Esq., about seventy years 
ago, and his daughter (the present occupant, to whom it has 
descended) is the last survivor of the fifth generation from the ori- 
ginal owner j her granddaughter, who resides with her, is of the 
seventh generation of the family born in it. The unfortunate per- 
sons arrested during the witchcraft delusion were examined in this 
house by Justices Corwin and Hathorne, before being committed. 

Capt. John Corwin, the eldest son, was born in Salem, July 28, 
1638. He became a merchant, and was elected deputy to the 
general court, from Salem, where he resided. He married Mar- 
garet, third daughter of John Winthrop, jr., governor of Connecti- 
cut, in May, 1665 ; her mother was the only child of the famous 
Hugh Peters, who suffered with the regicides at the restoration of 
the monarchy, in London, in 1660. Capt. Corwin died in 1683, 
leaving an only son, George, born February, 1666. The latter, who 
married Susannah, and afterwards Lydia, daughters of the Hon. 
Bartholomew Gedney, of the provincial council, is the Captain 



NOTICES OF THE CUR WENS. 447 

Corwin mentioned in Hutchinson's History of Massachusetts, in the 
expedition against Canada, under Sir William Phips, in 1690. He 
was unfortunately sheriff of the county of Essex in 1692, and for 
officiating during the witchcraft delusion, was severely persecuted 
by the friends of the sufferers, till his death, which took place in 
1696. 

Bartholomew Corwin, the only son of the last mentioned 
George, removed to Amwell, Hunterdon county, New Jersey, and 
married Esther Burt ; he had four sons, viz., George, John, Joseph, 
and Samuel, and died May 9, 1747, Samuel Corwin, of Amwell, 
a grandson of Bartholomew, informed the editor in 1822, that the 
books and papers left by his grandfather were destroyed, with other 
movables, during the revolutionary war, when his uncle Joseph 
removed to Canada, and the family of his uncle George, who died 
in 1780, removed to Kentucky. Probably Governor Corwin of 
Ohio is a descendant of this branch. He also informed the editor 
that John Corwin, a great grandson of Bartholomew, was living at 
Baltimore. 

Hon. Jonathan Corwin, second son of the first mentioned 
George, was born at Salem, Nov. 14, 1640. He commenced his 
public career as a deputy to the general court, and the following 
extract from the records of Salem, shows much confidence in him j 
and at the same time the action of that town towards re-establish- 
ing a government under the venerable Bradstreet, in opposition to 
the tyranny of Sir Edmund Andros : — " May 7, 1689. Captain 
John Prince and Mr. Jonathan Corwin were chosen to assist in the 
council at Boston, to be held on the 9th inst. ; and we desire that 
the honorable the governor, the magistrates, and deputies chosen 
in the year 1686, would (having always due respect to our de- 
pendence on the crown of England, and the obligation we are 
under by the late declaration before the surrender of the last 
government) reassume our charter government, by taking their 
places and forming a general court as soon as possible ; unto which, 
we shall readily and cheerfully subject ourselves, and be always 
assisting to the utmost of our power with our lives and estates as 
formerly." 

Mr. Corwin was named a provincial counsellor in the charter 
of 1691, and served until he was appointed a judge of the supreme 



448 NOTICES OF THE CUR WENS. 

court in 1702 ; tbo latter office he resigned in consequence of ill 
health, in 1715. He dieil in July, 1718, leaving a widow; the 
^dauahter of Sir Henry Gibbs of Dorsetshire, whose estate was 
sequestrated in 1648, during the revolution. Of their children, 
Anne died in yuth ; Elizabeth married James Lindall, Esq., of 
Salern; and George, born in 1682, who was graduated at Harvard 
college in 1701. He prepared himself for the church, and was 
ordained and settled in that of his ancestors in Salem ; the first 
founded in the colony of Massachusetts Bay. He is thus noiiced 
in the historical collections of Massachusetts, as copied from the 
records of the church : — 

" Died, at Salem, Nov. 23, 1717, the Rev, George Curwn, in 
the thirty-fifth year of his age, and the fourth of his ordained 
ministry. He was highly esteemed in his life, and very deservedly 
lamented at his death ; having been very eminent for his early im- 
provement in learning and piety, his singular abilities and great 
labors, his remarkable zeal and faithfulness. He was a great bene- 
factor to our poor." 

There is a good hali'-length portrait of him in the gallery of 
the Essex Historical Society. He married Mehitable Parkman ; 
and their sons were Samuel, author of the foregoing Journal, born 
in 1715; and George, born in 1717. The latter graduated at 
Harvard college in 1735, and engaged in commercial pursuits with 
success, until interrupted by hostilities with France ; which induced 
him to join in the expedition against Louisburg. His commission 
as commissary, bears the signature of Governor Shirley, and is 
dated February 1, 1745. He married Sarah, daughter of Benjamin 
Pickman, Esq., of Salem ; and died in the prosecution of a mer- 
cantile enterprise at St. Eustatia, in 1746. His children were, 
George, born in 1739, who early embarked in commerce, and was 
drowned while on a voyage to the West Indies in 1761 ; Sarah, 
who died unmarried; and Mehitable, who married the late Richard 
Ward, Esq., of Salem, and died in 1813, at the age of seventy- 
two. 

The late Samuel Curwen Ward, Jr., a grandson of the last 
mentioned, at the request of Judge Curwen, took his name, by an 
act of the legislature of Massachusetts ; and the three sons of the 
former are all that now bear that name in New England. 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 



GEN. PEPPERELL. 

General Sir William Pepperell, Baronet, was born at 
Kittery Point, Maine, in 1696. His father, Col. William Pep- 
perell, a native of Cornwall, England, settled in 1676 at the 
Isles of Shoals, where he was for many years extensively en- 
gaged in the fishing business. After acquiring considerable prop- 
erty, he removed to Kittery Point, and erected there a large man- 
sion house, now standing, where he died on the 15th February, 
1734, opulent and well esteemed. One of his daughters married 
the Hon. John Newmarch ; the other died in 1766, having suc- 
cessively married Hon. John Frost, Rev. Dr. Colman, and Rev. 
Benjamin Prescott, all of whom she survived. Sir William was 
his only son, and about the year 1727 was chosen a member of his 
majesty's council for the province of Massachusetts, to which he 
was annually re-elected until his death, a period of thirty-two 
years. With a vigorous frame, firm mind, and great coolness when 
in danger, he was well fitted for his residence in a country exposed 
to a ferocious enemy, and soon attained the rank of colonel. 

When the expedition against Louisburg was contemplated, 
all eyes were turned to him, then president of the council, and he 
was commissioned by the governors of New England to that all- 
important command, on the 31st January, 1745. He furnished 
this motto for the flag, which gave the enterprise the air of a cru- 
sade : " JVil desperandum Christo duce.^' He invested the city in 
the beginning of May, and articles of capitulation were signed in 
July. After this important and brilliant achievement, by command 
of his majesty he repaired to England and received a colonelcy in 
the army, from which he was raised to be a major-general in 1755, 
and a lieutenant-general in 1759. Besides the dignity of a baronet, 
which was conferred upon him, he obtained the thanks of the min- 
istry, and peculiar tokens of respect from several of the royal 
family. His affability gained him friends among all classes, and 
his mann?rs were not affected by his exaltation. The welfare of 
his country alone could have taken him from his domestic enjoy- 

57 



450 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 

ments and the head of the provincial council, to the fatigues of the 
camp and to doubtful victory. He married Mary, daughter of 
Grove Hirst, a granddaughter of Chief Justice Sewall. Their only 
son Andrew, graduated at Harvard College in 1743, and died 
March 1, 1751, aged twenty-five ; and their only daughter Eliza- 
beth married Col. Nathaniel Sparhawk, member of the council of 
Massachusetts. Sir William's dress was in the expensive style of 
his day, scarlet cloth trimmed with gold lace ; portraits of him and 
Lady Mary are preserved at Portsmouth, N. H., and there is a full 
length of him in the gallery of the Essex Historical Society, at 
Salem, Mass. Sir William died at his seat in Kittery, (near Ports- 
mouth,) June 6, 1759, aged sixty-three ; and Lady Mary on the 25th 
November, 1789. Her natural and acqriired powers were highly re- 
spectable, and she was admired for her wit and suavity of manner. 
Sir William was succeeded by his grandson, William P. Spar- 
hawk, who assumed his name, and was created a baronet ; he was 
a loyalist in the revolution, and died in London, December, 17, 
1816, when the title became extinct. 

GOV. SHIRLEY. 

William Shirley, governor of Massachusetts, was a native of 
Eno-land, and was bred to the law. After his arrival at Boston, 
about the year 1733, he practised in his profession, till he received 
his commission as governor, in 1741, in the place of Mr. Belcher. 
He planned the successful expedition against Cape Breton, in 1745 ; 
but, while his enterprising spirit deserves commendation, some of 
his schemes did not indicate much skill in the arts of navigation 
and war. He went to England in 1745, leaving Spencer Phips, 
the lieutenant-governor, commander-in-chief, but returned in 
1753. In 1754, he held a treaty with the eastern Indians, and 
explored the Kennebec, erecting two or three forts. In 1755, be- 
ing commander-in-chief of the British forces in America, he planned 
an expedition against Niagara, and proceeded himself as far as 
Oswego. In June, 1756, he was superseded in the command of 
the array by Abercrombie. He embarked for England in Septem- 
ber, and was succeeded by Mr. Pownall. After having been for a 
number of years governor of one of the Bahama islands, he returned 
to Massachusetts, and died at his seat in Roxbury, March 24, 1771. 
Though he held several of the most lucrative offices within the 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 451 

gift of the crown in America, yet he left no properly to his chil- 
dren. The abolition of the paper currency was owing in a great 
degree to his firmness and perseverance. His penetration and un- 
remitting industry gained him a high reputation. But it was 
thought that, as a military officer, he was not sufficiently active in 
seizing the moment for success. During his administration, Eng- 
land became acquainted with the importance of this country, and 
the colonists learned to fight. Governor Shirley published Electra, 
a tragedy, and Birth of Hercules, a mask, 1765. 

COL. MOULTON. 

Colonel Jeremiah Moulton was born in York, Maine, in 1688, 
and was taken prisoner by the Indians, January 22, 1692, old style, 
when York was destroyed by the Indians. He was released, with 
other children, in gratitude for the humanity of Colonel Church, 
who in one of his expeditions had released several Indian prisoners, 
old women and children. The savages were ijot ungrateful for 
acts of kindness. In August, 1724, he and Captain Harmon with 
two hundred and eight men, and three Mohawk Indians, marched 
against the Indian settlement at Norridgewock, in consequence of 
attacks upon the frontiers. There being four companies, the other 
commanders were Captain Bourne and Lieut. Bean. They left 
Richmond fort August S, old style, or August 19 ; the next day 
arrived at Taconic Falls on the Kennebec, where they left their 
boats and a guard of forty men. August 21, they marched by- 
land, and in the evening fired upon two Indians, who proved to be 
the dauo-hter and wife of Boraaseen ; the former was killed, the 
latter taken prisoner. August 23, they approached the village; 
Harmon with eighty men marching circuitously by the fields, and 
Moulton with eighty men directly upon Norridgewock, which he 
surprised. The Indians, consisting of about sixty warriors, were 
defeated, and the chapel and village destroyed. Father Ralle was 
killed in a wigwam, and twenty-six Indians, among whom were 
Bomaseen, and his son-in-law Mog, also Job, Canabesett, and 
"Wisseraemet, all noted warriors. One of the Mohawks was killed, 
but none of the whites. Harmon carried the scalps to Boston, and 
havino- been chief in command, was made a lieutenant-colonel for 
the exploit of Moulton, who obtained no reward. At the reduction 
of Louisburg in 1745, he commanded a regiment, and was after-. 



452 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 

wards sheriff of the county, councillor, and judge of the common 
pleas and of probate. He died at York, July 20, 1765, aged 77. 
His son and grandson were sheriffs of York county. 

COL. VAUGHAN. 

Lieut. Col. William Vaughan served under General Pepperell, 
in the expedition against Louisburg, in 1745 ; although he refused 
any regular command, he made himself highly useful during the 
whole siege by his advice in councils, vigilance in reconnoitermg the 
enemy, and promptitude while in command of perilous enterprises. 
He died in London, December, 1746, in the prime of life, 
where he went to press his claim for the above service. The imme- 
diate paternal ancestor of Col. Vaughan, was Major William 
Vaughan, who came from England about the middle of the seven- 
teenth century, and settled at Portsmouth, where he became a 
w^ealthy merchant. He died in 1720. His son George was lieutenant- 
governor of New Hampshire ; born in 1668, graduated at Harvard 
College in 1696. Afterwards agent for the province, and on the 
accession of George L was appointed lieutenant-governor in 1715 ; 
he died December, 1725. His son William, the subject of the 
above, was born at Portsmouth, Sept. 12, 1703. He had settled 
at Damariscotta, thirteen miles below fort Pemaquid, and his men 
were employed in fishing. Here he conceived the idea of the cap- 
ture of Louisburg, repaired to Boston, and conferred with Governor 
Shirley upon the subject ; proposing that it should be taken by 
surprise by going over the walls in winter upon drifts of snow. 

COL. GRIDLEY. 

Col. Richard Gridley was born in Boston, 1711. After serv- 
ing as an engineer at the reduction of Louisburg, in 1745, he en- 
tered the army as colonel of infantry and chief-engineer, in 1755. 
Under Winslow he was concerned in the expedition to Crown 
Point, 1756, and constructed the fortifications on Lake George. 
He served under Amherst in 1758, and was with Wolfe on the 
plains of Abraham, the following year. At the commencement of 
the revolution, he was appointed chief-engineer, and skilfully laid 
out the works in fortification of Breed's Hill, the day before the 
battle of June 17, 1775, in which he was wounded. He died at 
i^toughton, June 20, 1796. 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 453 

GOV. BERNARD. 

Sir Francis Bernard, Bart., governor of Massachusetts, arrived 
in the province from New Jersey, as successor to Governor Pownall, 
August 2, 1760, and continued at the head of the government 
nine years. His administration was during one of the most inter- 
esting periods in American history. He had governed New Jersey 
two years, in a manner very acceptable to that province ; and the 
first part of his administration in Massachusetts was very agreeable 
to the general court. Soon after his arrival, Canada was surren- 
dered to Amherst. Much harmony prevailed for two or three 
years, but this prosperous and happy commencement did not con- 
tinue ; there had long been two parties in the province, — the 
advocates for the crown, and the defenders of the rights of the 
people. Governor Bernard was soon classed with those who were 
desirious of strengfhening the royal authority in America ; the 
sons of liberty, therefore, stood forth uniformly in opposition to 
him. His indiscretion in appointing Mr. Hutchinson chief-justice, 
instead of giving that office to Colonel Otis of Barnstable, to whom 
it had been promised by Shirley, proved very injurious to his cause. 
In consequence of this appointment he lost the influence of Colonel 
Otis ; and by yielding himself to Mr. Hutchinson, he drew upon 
him the hostility of James Otis, the son, a man of great talents ; 
who soon became the leader on the popular side. The laws for 
the regulation of trade, and the exactions of the officers of customs, 
were the first things which greatly agitated the public mind ; and 
afterwards the stamp act increased the energy of resistance to the 
schemes of tyranny. Governor Bernard possessed no talent for 
conciliating ; he was for accomplishing ministerial purposes by 
force ; and the spirit of freedom gathered strength from the open 
manner in which he attempted to crush it. His speech to the 
general court after the repeal of the stamp act, was by no means 
calculated to assuage the angry passions that had lately been ex- 
cited. He was the principal means of bringing the troops to 
Boston, that he might overawe the people ; and it was owing to 
him that they were continued in the town. This measure had 
been proposed by him and Mr. Hutchinson, long before it was 
executed. While he professed himself a friend to the province, 
he was endeavoring to undermine its constitution, and to obtain an 



454 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 

essential alteration in the charter, by transferring from the general 
court to the crown the right of electing the council. His conduct, 
though it drew upon him the indignation of the province, was so 
pleasing to the ministry, that he was created a baronet, March 20, 
-1769. Sir Francis had too little command of his temper ; he 
could not conceal his resentments, nor could he restrain his 
censures. One of his last pubhc measures was to prorogue the 
general court in July, in consequence of their refusing to make 
provision for the support of the troops. The general court, how- 
ever, before they were prorogued, embraced the opportunity of 
drawing up a petition to his majesty for the removal of the 
governor. It was found necessary to recall him ; and he embarked, 
August 1, 1769, leaving Mr. Hutchinson, the lieutenant-governor, 
commander-in-chief. There were few who lamented his departure j 
he died in England, June, 1779. 

If a man of greater address and wisdom had occupied the place 
of Sir Francis, it is very probable our revolution would not have 
taken place so soon. But his arbitrary principles, and his zeal for 
the authority of the crown, enkindled the spirit of the people ; 
while his representations to the ministry excited them to those 
measures, which hastened the separation of the colonies from the 
mother country. From the letters of Governor Bernard, which 
were obtained and transmitted to this country by some secret friend, 
it appears he had very little regard to the interests of liberty. His 
select letters on the trade and government of America, written in 
Boston, from 1763 to 1768, were published in London in 1774 ; 
his other letters, written home in confidence, were published in 
1768 and 1769.* 

GOV. HUTCHINSON. 

Thomas, (son of Colonel Thomas Hutchinson, an eminent mer- 
chant and member of the council, who seized the famous pirate, 
Kidd, when he resisted the officers sent to arrest him,) was gra- 
duated at Harvard College, in 1727. He at first embarked in 
commercial pursuits, but did not succeed. He then studied the 
common law of England, and the principles of her constitution. 
He was elected for ten consecutive years to the assembly, and for 

* See Allen's Biography. 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 455 

three years was speaker. He succeeded his uncle, Edward Hutch- 
inson, as judge of probate, in 1752. He was a member of the 
council from 1749 to 1766 ; lieut. governor from 1758 to 1771. 
On the death of Judge Sewall, in 1760, he was appointed chief- 
justice ; all which he filled with distinguished ability. " His 
oratory charmed beyond that of any man ; there was equal fluency 
and pathos in his manner; he could be argumentative and smooth ; 
he was active, diligent and plausible ; and, upon all occasions 
seemed to be influenced by public spirit more than selfish consider- 
ations. His respect to religious institutions, his sympathy with the 
distressed, his affability, integrity, industry and talents, procured 
in a very high degree the public confidence." In 1767, he was 
appointed one of the commissioners for setthng the boundary 
with New-York; and, amidst all the vituperations against him, 
Massachusetts has cause to remember with gratitude that his ad- 
vice only prevented the other commissioners, Hancock, Hanly and 
Brattle, from abandoning the claim to the western territory of 
New-York, which was retained and sold for a large sum. 

On the departure of Governor Bernard in 1769, the admin- 
istration devolved on Lieut, Governor Hutchinson ; and in March, 
1771, he received his commission as governor just as he had con- 
cluded to advise the government that it would be desirable for him 
to remain chief-justice, and pass his days in peace. Unhappily for 
himself he accepted the appointment, and from this time till his 
departure in 1774, he was constantly in dispute with the council 
and assembly. Among the subjects of controversy, was the pro- 
vision made for his support by the crown. By his speech of Jan. 
6, 1773, asserting the supreme authority of parliament, he pro- 
voked a discussion by the council and house which had better 
never been uttered ; and the minister recommended him not to 
renew the discussion. His views he at all times candidly and 
manfully explained to the legislature ; in many speeches and mes- 
sages which display his learning, temper and abilities. 

The confidential letters written by him, and others to Mr. 
Whately, a former member of parliament, in opposition to the 
ministry, which caused so much excitement in 1772, were procured 
by Dr. Franklin through Mr. Temple, (afterwards consul general 
to United States,) from Mr. Whately's executor, and caused a duel 



456 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 

between the two latter. Dr. Franklin sent them to Mr. Cooper, 
with an injunction that they should not be copied or published ; 
of which restriction the Doctor remarked, that " as distant objects 
seen only through a mist appear larger, the same may happen 
from the mystery in this case.^' In this state they remained six or 
eight months, and finally were communicated to the legislature 
in secret session. In the letters was no sentiment the governor 
had not avowed in his public addresses. All that was objected to, 
and for which the council reproached him, was the following : — " I 
never think of the measures necessary for the peace and good 
order of the colonies without pain ; there must be an abridgment 
of what are called English liberties. I doubt whether it is possible 
to project a system of government, in which a colony three thou- 
sand miles distant shall enjoy all the liberty of the parent state." 
For this, the council and assembly voted an address for his removal j 
and at a hearing before the privy council of his friends, Mr. Man- 
duit and Mr. Wedderburne, on his behalf, the decision w^as in 
favor of " the honor, integrity, and conduct of the governor." 

In an unpublished letter of John Adams to Colonel Joseph 
Ward, dated Quincy, Oct. 24, 1809, he says :— " If I was the 
witch of Endor, I would wake the ghost of Hutchinson, and give 
him absolute power over the currency of the United States and 
every part of it ; provided always, that he should meddle with 
nothing but currency. As little as I revere his memory, I will 
acknowledge that he understood the subject of coin and commerce 
better than any man I ever knew in this country. He was a mer- 
chant, and there can be no scientific merchant without a perfect 
knowledge of the theory of a medium of trade. It will be in vain 
to talk of public credit, until we return to a pure, unmixed circu- 
lation of standard gold and silver. There can never be a govern- 
ment of laws in money matters, without a fixed philosophical and 
mathematical standard. Contracts can never be inviolable with- 
out a stable standard." 

Governor Hutchinson deserves great honor for his labors in 
regard to the History of Massachusetts, which he published from 
its first settlement to the year 1760. In so high estimation was 
it held, that at the expiration of more than half a century after its 
publication, successful efforts were made by the most influential 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 457 

persons there to obtain the unpublished part of this history, which 
they pronounced, " a work of inestimaUe value, resting on the solid 
basis of utility and truth ; the accuracy and fidelity of which was 
universally felt and acknowledged.'^ These efforts of the govern- 
ment of Harvard College, the Historical Society, of Judge Davis, 
Governor Gore, Dr. Kirkland, Dr. Lowell, and James Savage, Esq., 
who secured the private circulation of five hundred copies before 
publication, and whose sentiments on the leading subject are at 
variance with those of its author ; are proud testimonials of the 
character of Governor Hutchinson in the field of his labors and 
sacrifices, and amidst the descendants of his persecutors. 

Governor Hutchinson died at Brompton, near London, June 3, 
1780, aged sixty-nine, and was buried at Croydon. 

JOHN HANCOCK. 

In the posthumous volume of Governor Hutchinson's History of 
Massachusetts,* he says: — " Mr. Hancock's name has been sounded 
through the world as a principal actor in this tragedy. He was a 
young man, whose father and grandfather were ministers in country 
parishes, of irreproachable characters, but, like country ministers 
in New England in general, of small estates. His father's brother, 
from a bookseller became one of the most opulent merchants in 
the province ; he had raised a great estate with such rapidity, that 
it was commonly believed among the vulgar, that he had pur- 
chased a valuable diamond for a small sum and sold it at its full 
price. But the secret lay in his importing from St. Eustatia great 
quantities of tea in molasses hogsheads, which sold at a very great 
advance; and by importing, at the same time, a few chests from 
England, he freed the rest from suspicion, and always had the 
reputation of a fair trader. He was also concerned in supplying 
the officers of the army, ordnance and navy, and made easy and 
advantageous remittances ; when he died, he left to his nephew 
more than fifty thousand pounds sterling, besides the reversion after 
the death of his widow, of twenty thousand more. The uncle was 
always on the side of government ; the nephew's ruling passion 
was a fondness for popular applause. He changed the course of 
his uncle's business, and built and employed in trade, a great 

* Published in 1828. 
58 



458 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 

number of ships ; and in this way, and by building at the same 
time several houses, he found work for a great number of trades- 
men ; made himself popular — was chosen selectman — represent- 
ative — moderator of town meetings, etc. He associated with those 
who were called friends of liberty. His natural powers were 
moderate, and had been very little improved by study, or appli- 
cation to any kind of science. His ruling passion kept him from 
ever losing sight of its object, but he was fickle and inconstant in 
the means of pursuing it ; and though, for the most part, he was 
closely attached to Mr. Samuel Adams, he has repeatedly broken 
off from all connection with him for several months together. 
Partly by inattention to his private affairs, and partly from want of 
judgment, he became greatly involved and distressed ; and the estate 
was lost with much greater rapidity than it had been acquired." 

President Quincy, in his invaluable History of Harvard Univer- 
sity, has devoted a chapter to the wrongs which that institution 
suffered at the hands of Mr. Hancock as its treasurer -, and closes 
the detail as follows : — " From respect to the high rank which 
John Hancock attained among the patriots of the American Revo- 
lution, it would have been grateful to have passed over in silence 
his long denial of the rights of the college, and withholding its 
property, had truth and fidelity of history permitted. But justice 
to a public institution which he essentially embarrassed during a 
period of nearly twenty years, and also to the memory of those 
whom he made to feel and to suffer, requires that these records of 
unquestionable facts, which at the time when they occurred 
were the cause of calumny and censure to honorable men, actuated 
in their measures solely by a sense of oflftcial fidelity, should not 
be omitted. In republics, popularity is the form of power most 
apt to corrupt its possessor, and to tempt him, for party ends or 
personal interest, to trample on right or set principle at defiance. 
History has no higher or more imperative duty to perform, than 
by an unyielding fidelity to impress this class of men with the 
apprehension that, although through fear or favor they may escape 
the animadversions of contemporaries, there awaits them in her 
impartial record the retribution of truth." 

President Quincy also says of him : — " His manners were full 
of suavity and attraction ; his love of place and popularity intense. 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 459 

He early joined the patriotic party, whose leaders perceived the 
advantage of placing him at their head ; and giving him every 
distinction they could command. By the continued influence of 
these possessions, manners and circumstances, he acquired a popular 
power, which in this country has scarcely been exceeded." 

" The style of living he adopted, and the openness of his hand 
to every object coinciding with his views or his interests, kept his 
ample resources in a perpetual state of exhaustion. It suited both 
his interest and policy to postpone debts, and gratify friends." 

SAMUEL ADAMS. 

Of this distinguished patriot of the Revolution, Gov. Hutchin- 
son, in the posthumous volume already quoted, says : " Mr. Samuel 
Adams's father had been one of the directors of the Land Bank in 
1741, which was dissolved by act of parliament. After his de- 
cease his estate was put up for sale by public auction under author- 
ity of an act of the general assembly. The son first made himself 
conspicuous on this occasion. He attended the sale, threatened the 
sheriff to bring an action against him and all who should attempt 
to enter upon the estate under pretence of a purchase ; and by in- 
timidating both the sheriff and those who intended to purchase, he 
prevented the sale, kept the estate in his possession, and the debt 
to the land company remains unsatisfied. He was afterwards col- 
lector of taxes for the town of Boston, and made a defalcation, 
which caused an additional tax upon the inhabitants. These things 
were unfavorable to his character, but the determined spirit he 
showed in the cause of liberty would have covered a multitude of 
such faults. He was for near twenty years a writer against gov- 
ernment in the public newspapers ; at first but an indifferent one ; 
long practice caused him to arrive at great perfection, and to ac- 
quire a talent of artfully and fallaciously insinuating into the minds 
of his readers a prejudice against the characters of all whom he 
attacked, beyond any other man I ever knew. This talent he em- 
ployed in the messages, remonstrances, and resolves of the House 
of Representatives, most of which were of his composition, and he 
made more converts to his cause by calumniating governors and 
other servants of the crown, than by strength of reasoning. The 
benefit to the town from his defence of their liberties, he supposed 



460 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES, 

an equivalent to his arrears as their collector ; and the prevailing 
principle of his party, that the end justified the means, probably 
quieted the remorse he must have felt from robbing men of their 
characters, and injuring them more than if he had robbed them of 
their estates." 

JOHN ADAMS. 
The same writer has the following notice of another eminent 
leader of the revolution : " Mr. John Adams was a distant relation 
and intimate acquaintance of Mr. Samuel Adams. After his edu- 
cation at the college he applied to the study of the law, a short 
time before the troubles began. He is said to have been at a loss 
which side to take. Mr. Sewall, who was with the government, 
would have persuaded him to be on the same side, and promised 
him to desire Governor Bernard to make him a justice of the peace. 
The governor took time to consider of it, and having, as Mr. Adams 
conceived, not taken proper notice of him, or given him offence on 
some former occasion, he no longer deliberated, and ever after 
joined in opposition. As the troubles increased he increased in 
knowledge, and made a figure, not only in his own profession, but 
as a patriot, and was generally esteemed as a person endowed 
with more knowledge than his kinsman, and equally zealous in the 
cause of liberty ; but neither his business nor his health would ad- 
mit of that constant application to it which distinguished the other 
from all the rest of the province. In general he may be said to be 
of stronger resentment upon any real or supposed personal neglect 
or injury than the other, but in their resentment against such as 
opposed them in the cause in which they were engaged, it is diffi- 
cult to say which exceeded. His ambition was without bounds, 
and he has acknowledged to his acquaintance that he could not 
look with complacency upon any man who was in possession of 
more wealth, more honors, or more knowledge than himself." 

LIEUT. GOV. GUSHING. 

Thomas Gushing, LL. D. was the son of a very popular speaker 

of the Assembly of Massachusetts ; graduated at Harvard College 

in 1744 ; was fond of public life, and paid too little attention to 

pecuniary considerations ; was many years a representative, and in 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 461 

1763, when Governor Bernard negatived Mr. Otis as speaker, he 
was elected in his place, and continued in that office till chosen a 
member of the first Congress, to meet in Philadelphia in 1774. He 
was elected lieut. governor in 1779, which office he held till his 
death in 1788. His name as speaker having been signed to all 
the public papers, made it known abroad, where he was considered 
the leader of the whigs. Dr. Johnson, in his pamphlet called 
" Taxation no Tyranny ^^^ says, " one object of the Americans is to 
adorn the brows of Mr. Cashing with a diadem." And he was at 
other times the object of the sarcasm of ministerial writers. He was 
a member of the corporation of Harvard College, and attentive to 
its affairs, from which he received a diploma of doctor of laws. 

JUDGE PAINE. 

Robert Treat Paine, L.L. D., one of the signers of the decla- 
ration of independence, was born in Boston, 1731; graduated at 
Harvard College in 1749 ; studied law ; and conducted the pros- 
ecution on the part of the crown with great reputation, in the 
absence of the attorney general, in the trial of Capt. Preston and 
his men of " Boston massacre'^ memory in 1770. In 1773 he was 
elected a member of the General Assembly, and afterwards was 
chosen a member of the continental Congress, which met at Phil- 
adelphia in 1774. The following four years he was re-elected and 
rendered important services in introducing the manufacture of salt- 
petre, then imperfectly understood, while the colonies were suffer- 
ing for the want of gunpowder. He was also of the committee for 
the encouragement of the manufacture of cannon, and other imple- 
ments of war. In a letter to the Hon. Joseph Palmer, as president 
of the Massachusetts provincial Congress at Watertown, he com- 
plains of an intrigue to supplant him in the good opinion of his 
constituents, and says he " has just discovered a malicious and 
slanderous correspondence between John Adams and Thomas Cush" 
ing.^^ On the organization of the Supreme Court in Massachusetts 
in 1776, he was named for one of the judges, which he declined at 
first, as John Adams, many years his junior, had obtained the ap- 
pointment of chief justice; but upon the resignation of the latter, 
Mr. Paine took his seat on that bench. His son, who afterwards 
bore his name, was a distinguished writer of national and patriotic 
poetry. 



462 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 

GOV. HARRISON. 
Col. Benjamin Harrison, one of the signers of the declaration 
of independence, was a native of Virginia, and graduated at the 
college of William and Mary. He commenced his political career 
as early as 1764, in the legislature of his native colony. The royal 
government offered him a seat at the council board, a tempting bait 
for young ambition, which he had the resolution to refuse, as the 
measures of the ministry were already unfriendly to the liberty of 
the provinces ; and when the time came for active resistance to 
arbitrary power, he was ready for service. He was in the first 
general Congress of 1774, and the three succeeding ones, and was 
particularly useful as chairman of the board of war. After his 
resignation in 1777, he was elected speaker of the House of Bur- 
gesses of Virginia, and filled the chair till 1782, when he was 
elected governor, to which office he was twice re-elected. He 
retired in 1785 to private life, but in 1788 became a member of 
the convention which ratified the Constitution of the United States. 
He died in 1791. Gov. Harrison was father of General William 
H. Harrison, late President of the United States. 

LIEUT. GOV. A. OLIVER. 

Of Lieut. Governor Andrew Oliver, Gov. Hutchinson says, 
" A very small portion of mankind have so well deserved to be 
characterized, " Integer vitce seclerisque 'purus.'" Scarce any man 
ever had a more scrupulous and sacred regard to truth, and yet, to 
such a degree did the malignant spirit of party prevail as to 
cause a writer* in the public papers in England to bring against 
him a charge of perjury. The Council of Massachusetts Bay, from 
whose votes and resolves this writer attempted to support the 
charge, by a vote which they caused to be printed, repaired the in- 
jury as well as they could ; but a consciousness of his innocency 
and integrity was his best support. This abuse, however, together 
with the reproaches most injuriously cast upon him by the resolves 
of the council and house, in which he was treated as the deter- 
mined enemy to the liberties of his country, the interest whereof, 

♦ Arthur Lee, under the signature of Junius Americanus. 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 463 

according to the best of his judgment, (which was much superior 
to that of his most virulent persecutors,) he always had at heart, 
affected his spirits and evidently accelerated his death." 

Lieut. Gov. Oliver was a son of Hon. Daniel Oliver, of Bos- 
ton, and graduated at Harvard College in 1724. He was a repre- 
sentative from Boston, member of the council, and secretary of the 
province, before his last troublesome dignity as lieut. governor, 
which office he filled from 1770 to 1774 ; until death closed his 
career on the 3d March in that year. His removal had been 
clamorously called for by the people through the provincial as- 
sembly. Lieut. Gov. Oliver was a liberal benefactor to his alma 
mater in books, ancient manuscripts and anatomical preparations. 

HON. S. QUINCY. 

Samuel Quincy, brother of Josiah and Edmund, of Boston, 
graduated at Harvard College in 1754, was a poet and an elegant 
prose writer. As solicitor for the crown, he was engaged with 
Robert Treat Paine in the memorable trial of Capt. Preston and 
the British soldiers in 1770 ; his brother was opposed to him on 
that occasion, and both reversed their party sympathies in their 
professional position. He was an addresser of Gov. Hutchinson, 
and went to England early in 1775. He was included in the ban- 
ishment act of September, 1778. In April, 1779, he was appointed 
comptroller at Parkin Bay, Antigua, and died on his passage from 
Tortola to England for his health, August 9, 1789, aged 55, Mr. 
Quincy married a sister of the late Henry Hill, Esq., of Boston. 
His son, of the same name, who graduated at Harvard College in 
1782, was an attorney at law in Lenox, Massachusetts, where he 
died, Jan. 1816, leaving a son Samuel, now an alderman of Bos- 
ton. His other son, Josiah, is an eminent counsellor at law of 
Romney, New Hampshire, and president of the senate of that 
state. 

HON. JON. SEWALL. 

Jonathan Sewall,LL.D., was born at Boston, August, 1728. His 

father, Jonathan Sewall, merchant, was a nephew of Chief Justice 

Stephen Sewall, and grandson of Major Stephen Sewall, of Salem. 

He graduated at Harvard College in 1748, and was a teacher at 



464 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 

Salem till 1756. He married Esther, daughter of Edmund Quincy, 
Esq., of Braintree, afterwards of Boston, and sister of Dorothy 
Quincy, wife of Governor Hancock, and of Elizabeth Quincy, 
wife of Samuel Sewall, Esq., of Boston, the father of the late Hon. 
Samuel Sewall, chief justice of Massachusetts. Mr. Sewall stu- 
died law with Judge Chambers Russell, of Lincoln ; commenced 
practice in his profession at Charlestown, and at the death of 
Jeremy Gridley, Esq., he was appointed attorney-general of Mas- 
sachusetts, September, 1767. He was an able and successful law- 
yer. The elder President Adams was his intimate friend, though 
opposite in politics, and has done justice to his memory. He was 
solicitor-general before he succeeeded Gridley in the office of attor- 
ney-general. His eloquence is represented as having been soft, 
smooth, and insinuating, which gave him as much power over a 
jury as a lawyer ought ever to possess. It is proper here to take 
notice of one fact relative to Sewall. He commenced the suit in 
May, 1769, in favor of a negro against his master for his freedom, 
viz., James vs. Richard Lechmere, of Cambridge. The late Chief 
Justice Dana was counsel for the defendant. The suit terminated 
the following year in favor of the negro; and I believe it was the 
first case where the grand question was settled abolishing slavery 
in that state. The case of the negro Somerset, which Blackstone 
commends so highly, and which has been a matter of self-gratu- 
lation in England, was not settled till 1772; two years after the 
decision in favor of James. In 1768, he w^as appointed judge of 
admiralty for Nova Scotia, and although he went there once or 
twice in that capacity, he remained but a short period. At the 
commencement of the revolution, he was residing at Cambridge, in 
the Vassall house, afterwards Washington's head quarters, and 
since occupied by Andrew Cragie. He left this country for Eng- 
land early in 1775. He had before ably vindicated the characters 
of Governors Bernard, Hutchinson, and Oliver, and was esteemed 
an able writer. He was proscribed in the Conspirator's Act of 
April 30, 1779. He resided chiefly in Bristol till 1788, (for the 
education of his children,) when he removed to St. John's, New 
Brunswick, having been appointed judge of the vice-admiralty 
court there, where he resided till his death, which occurred Septem- 
ber 26, 1796, at the age of sixty-eight. His widow survived him, 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 465 

and removed to Montreal, where she died at an advanced age. 
His son Jonathan, was at school at Hackney in 1777, and after- 
wards resided at Quebec, where he sustained the offices of solicitor 
and attorney-general, and jud^e of the vice-admiralty court, until 
1808, when he was appointed chief justice of the province, which 
he resigned in 1838, and died November 12, 1839, aged seventy- 
four. In 1832, he received the degree of doctor of laws, from 
Harvard College. His son Stephen was appointed solicitor-gene- 
ral in 1810, and resided in Montreal, but lost that office in 1814, 
in consequence of political differences with the governor ; he died 
there of Asiatic cholera in the summer of 1832. 

ISAAC SMITH. 

Rev. Isaac Smith graduated at Harvard College in 1767, where 
he was a tutor 1774-5, when he left for England, having a brother 
settled there. He was a loyalist, and a dissenting minister, much 
esteemed for the catholic tenor of his discourses. He was ordained 
June 24, 1778, over a society of dissenters at Sidmouth, Devon- 
shire, but returned to New England after the peace, and became 
librarian in Harvard College, from 1789 to 1791, and subsequently 
preceptor of Dummer academy, at Byfield, near Newburyport, 
Massachusetts. He was a brother of William Smith, Esq. of Boston. 

JOSEPH GREEN. 
Josepi^Green, Esq., a wit and poet, born at Boston, 1706, received 
the rudiments of learning at the South Grammar School from Mr. 
Williams, and graduated at Harvard College, 1726. He was the 
author of many fugitive pieces, chiefly satirical, against the gover- 
nor or assembly, as chance might direct. He was a fine classical 
scholar. He turned his attention to commerce, of which he obtained 
a comprehensive knowledge, and acquired a handsome property. 
To integrity and generosity were added in him politeness and ele- 
gance. His humor, learning and taste might have connected him 
with the influential, and procured for him almost any distinction ; 
but he would never accept public office. He signed an address to 
Governor Hutchinson on his leaving the government. In 1774, 
when an act passed Parliament depriving Massachusetts of her 
charter, a number of counsellors were appointed by mandamus ; 

59 



466 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 

among them was Mr. Green, who declined the honor as soon as 
summoned, giving in his resignation to Governor Gage. Of his 
poetical pieces, " the Elegy on Mr. Old Tenor," and the satire on 
the processions of Free-masons, have passed through many editions. 
During the Whitfieldian controversy, there was a club of sentimen- 
talists who wrote what they pleased, and, as the pamphlets were 
emitted from the press, it was easy to conjecture the parts he wrote, 
especially if a line of poetry was introduced. They also took a 
part in politics, and began by attacking the administration of 
Governor Belcher, putting his speeches into rhyme. In the con- 
troversy wdth Great Britain, previous to the Revolution, most of 
these gentlemen joined the party of loyalists. Mr. Green was in- 
cluded in the act of banishment of 1778, and having left Boston 
early in 1775, passed the remainder of his days in England, where 
he died at London, December 11, 1780, aged seventy-four. 

JASPER MAUDUIT. 

Jasper Mauduit, Esq., of London, the friend of Governor Hutch- 
inson and Lieutenant Governor Oliver, successfully vindicated 
their characters respecting their letters to the privy council, as- 
sisted by Mr. Wedderburne. He was for a long time treasurer of 
the Society for propagating the Gospel among the Indians of New 
England, and agent for the Assembly of Massachusetts Bay in 
London. His zeal was greater for the conversion of Indians, than 
for the important concerns of the province. 

ISRAEL MAUDUIT. 

Israel Mauduit, Esq., secretary of Lord George Germ aine, was 
distinguished as the writer of several pamphlets, in which the char- 
acter of General Howe was severely attacked. 

WARD NICHOLAS BOYLSTON. 

Ward Nicholas Boylston, Esq., the son of Benjamin and Mary 
Hallowell, (his mother being the sister of Nicholas Boylston,) was 
born at Boston in 1749 ; by the desire of his maternal uncle, his 
name was changed in 1770. In 1773, he embarked for Newfound- 
land ; from thence he sailed to Italy ; travelled through Turkey, 
Syria, Palestine, and Egypt, and along the Barbary coast ; and 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 467 

returned through France and Flanders to England, in 1775. He 
entered into business as a merchant, and remained in London till 
1800, when he returned to Boston, and continued to reside in 
Massachusetts till his death, which occurred in January, 1828, 
£t the age of seventy-eight. 

He possessed a mind emulative of the spirit of his maternal 
ancestry, w^hich he acknowledged in a letter dated May 20, 1800, 
when he founded at Cambridge the " Boylston Medical Library." 
In this he expressed the pride he felt in being nearly allied to his 
maternal great-uncle. Dr. Zabdiel Boylston, " who first introduced 
the inoculation for the small-pox into America, from whence it 
was carried to England, and has ever since been extending its 
beneficial influence through the world ;" and also to his uncle, 
Nicholas Boylston, " whose memory is known and honored for 
his liberal donations to Harvard University." In 1840, Mr. Boyl- 
ston's fund for a college and anatomical museum amounted to 
nine thousand dollars ; which was in addition to the medical 
library of eleven hundred volumes, and the fund for prize disserta- 
tions, established by him in 1800. 

JOHN PRINCE. 
Dr. John Prince, of Salem, Mass., a refugee, who removed to 
Halifax, in 1775. He married a daughter of Hon. Richard Derby, 
of Salem, and was proscribed in the banishment act of Massachu- 
setts, Sept. 1778. John Prince, Esq., of Boston, who married a 
daughter of E. H. Derby, Esq., is a son. 

JOSEPH HOOPER. 
Joseph Hooper, Esq., ofMarblehead, was a graduate of Harvard 
College in 1763, and a refugee in 1775. He was a son of Peter 
Hooper, Esq., a "mandamus" counsellor, who rose from abject 
poverty to apparently inexhaustible wealth ; engrossing for years 
a large part of the foreign fishing business at Marblehead, which 
w^as very extensive about the year 1760. For a while he pur- 
chased all the fish brought into that quarter, sent it to Bilboa 
and other ports in Spain, and received gold and silver in return, 
with which he purchased goods in England, etc. He built splendid 
houses in town and country, rode in a chariot like a prince, and 



468 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 

was ever after known as " King Hooper." For years he knew not 
the state of his affairs, and died insolvent in 1790. At his elegant 
house in Danvers, (since Collins's,) he entertained Governor Gage 
for some time in 1774. The mansion late Chief Justice Sewall's, 
in Marblehead, was built by his son Joseph Hooper. He became 
a paper manufacturer at Bungay, Suffolk, England ; where he 
died in August, 1812. Although his name does not appear in the 
proscribing act, a rope walk of his and some lots of land were 
sold by the commissioners, with other confiscated property, in 1781. 

GENERAL CARLETON. 

Sir Guy CarletOxV, (afterwards Lord Dorchester,) a distin- 
guished British officer in America ; was appointed a brigadier- 
general in this country in 1766 ; he was made major-general in 
1772. At the close of the year 1774, a commission passed the 
seals, constituting him captain-general and governor of Quebec. 
When Canada was invaded by Montgomery in 1775, Carleton was 
in the most imminent danger of being taken prisoner upon the St. 
Lawrence after the capture of Montreal ; but he escaped in a boat 
with muffled paddles, and arrived safely at Quebec, which he found 
threatened by an unexpected enemy. Arnold, though he had been 
repulsed by Colonel McLean, was yet in the neighborhood of 
the city, waiting for the arrival of Montgomery, previously to 
another attack. General Carleton, with the skill of an experienced 
officer, took the necessary measures for the security of the city ; 
his first act was to oblige all to leave Quebec who would not take 
up arms in its defence. When Montgomery approached, his sum- 
mons was treated with contempt by the governor, whose intrepidity 
was not to be shaken ; by his industry and bravery, Carleton saved 
the city. After the unsuccessful assault of the last of December, in 
which Montgomery was killed, he had nothing more immediately to 
apprehend. In May, 1776, he obliged the Americans to raise the 
siege ; and it was not long before he compelled them to withdraw 
entirely from Canada. In October, he recaptured Crown Point ; but 
as the winter was advancing, he did not attempt the reduction of 
Ticonderoga, but returned to St. John's. In the beginning of the 
next year he was superseded in his command by Burgoyne, who 
was intrusted with the northern British army. Carleton's expe- 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 469 

rience, abilities, and services were such as rendered him worthy 
of the command, which was given to another. Though he imme- 
diately asked leave to resign his government, he yet contributed 
all in his power to secure the success of the campaign. In the 
year 1782, he was appointed, as successor of Sir Henry Clinton, 
commander-in-chief of all his majesty's forces in America ; he 
arrived at New-York with his commission in the beginning of May. 
After the treaty was signed, he delayed for some time the evacu- 
ation of the city, from regard to the safety of the loyalists ; but 
November 25, 1783, he embarked, and withdrew the British ships 
from the shores of America. He died in England at the close of 
the year 1808, aged eighty-three ; he was a brave and an able 
officer, and he rendered important services to his country. Though 
he was not conciliating in his manners, and possessed the severity 
of a soldier, yet his humanity to the American prisoners, whom 
he took in Canada, has been much praised. In excuse for the 
little attention which he paid to the honorable burial of Mont- 
gomery, it can only be said that he regarded him as a rebel.* 

GENERAL BURGOYNE. 

It is curious that a man of such celebrity as a writer, a 
senator, and an officer, as the late Lieutenant General John 
Burgoyne, should be found among the number of those of whose 
youthful days no memorial has been preserved. Neither the 
time, place, nor circumstances of his birth are known. Even 
his parentage is doubtful. He is said, but upon what authority it 
does not appear, to have been a natural son of that Lord Bingley 
who died at an advanced age, in 1774. That he had the advan- 
tage of a liberal education and early intercourse with polished 
society, is sufficiently evident from his writings ; and it is probable 
that he was early devoted to the profession of arms, for on the 
10th of May, 1759, he was raised to the rank of Lieut. Colonel, 
and in the August of the ensuing year, he was appointed Lieut. 
Col. Commandant of the 16th Light Dragoons. His after services 
at different periods, in Spain, Portugal and America, are all well 
known, especially the unfortunate termination of his military career 
at Saratoga, which, though it tarnished not his honor, cast a shade 

* See Allen's Biography. 



470 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 

over his brow, ever afterwards conspicuous to the physiogno- 
mical eye. He arrived in England on parole in May, 1778, and 
published a letter to his constituents, throwing the blame of the 
failure of the expedition on Lord Sackville, (George Germaine,) 
the secretary of the American department; and a reply to it, 
doubtless written by Lord Sackville, exhibits some of the peculiari- 
ties of the style of Junius. He made on certain occasions no ordi- 
nary figure in parliament, and towards the close of the year 1781, 
when a majority of parliament seemed resolved to persist in the 
war, he joined the opposition, and advocated a motion for the dis- 
continuance of the fruitless contest. He knew that it was impos- 
sible to conquer America. " Passion, prejudice and interest," said 
he, " may operate suddenly and partially j but when we see one 
principle pervading the whole continent, the Americans resolutely 
encountering difficulty and death for a course of years, it must be 
a strong vanity and presumption in our own minds, which can only 
lead us to imagine that they are not in the right." He moved in the 
first circles, and married Lady Charlotte Stanley, a daughter of the 
Earl of Derby ; and yet we know not who and what originally he 
was. He was the author of four successful dramas : The Maid of 
the Oaks, the Lord of the Manor, Richard Coeur de Lion, and the 
Comedy of the Heiress ; and yet the curiosity of his biographer, 
even in this anecdote-dealing and memoir-sifting age, cannot trace 
his origin, or the scenes of his education. The fable of the Lord of 
the Manor seems, in some degree, to have been suggested (though 
sufficiently disguised in the modification of character and circum- 
stances) by the incident of his own matrimonial connection ; for 
his was a clandestine and unauthorized marriage, at a time when 
he held only a subaltern's commission in the army, and is said to 
have excited at first the resentment of the lady's father to such a 
degree, that he declared his resolution never to admit the offenders 
into his presence, though in process of time the anger of the earl 
subsided, a reconciliation was effected, and was succeeded by a 
warm and lasting attachment. It is probable, also, that the mem- 
ory of his lady, who died in the year 1776, at Kensington Palace, 
during his absence in America, is embalmed by the affectionate 
regrets of the General in that beautiful air in the first act of that 
opera : 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 47 1 

'' Encompassed in an angel's frame, 
An angel's virtues lay • 
Too soon did heaven assert the claim, 
And call its own away. 

My Anna's worth, my Anna's charms, 

Must never more return ! 
What now shall fill these widow'd arms ? 

Ah, me ! my Anna's urn !" 

It is some confirmation of this conjecture, that General Bur- 
goyne contracted no second marriage. Taste and sentiment, rather 
than vigor and originahty, and famiharity with local manners and 
the superficies of character, rather than the comprehensive views of 
the sources of human action and penetration into the deepest re- 
cesses of the human heart, characterize the genius of this writer ; 
and his satire, though well pointed, will accordingly lose its inter- 
est when the memory of the fleeting follies and temporary politics 
at which it is levelled shall have died away. Of his dramatic 
works, incomparably the most valuable is the comedy of " The 
Heiress," which may, indeed, be called the last comedy produced on 
the English stage. 

From the peace till his death, which took place in August, 
1792, he lived as a private gentleman, devoted to pleasure and the 
muses. The following letter, addressed by him to Garrick, is cha- 
racteristic : 

TO DAVID GARRICK, ESQ. 

Wednesday, JVov. 9, 1774. 
My dear Sir: 

Your obhging and most friendly letter was delivered to me 
yesterday, at the moment I was sitting down to dinner with com- 
pany, or I should have endeavored on the moment to return my 
acknowledgments, with a warmth of expression due to that with 
which you have honored me. In regard to the very signal dis- 
tinction you propose to me of the freedom of the house, and the 
manner of presenting it, I hope you will permit me to decline the 
parade, and at the same time believe me truly sensible of the honor 
of it. I should feel myself as proud to be seated in Drury Lane 
by your deliberate judgment of my talents, as ever an old Roman 



472 BIOGRAPHICAL N NOTICES. 

did in acquiring the freedom of Im theatre by public services ; but 
you are at present too partial towards me ; and, till I appear in 
my own eyes more worthy, I must request you to bound your kind 
intentions to an order for admittance occasionally to your green- 
room, where I promise neither to criticise your men ill-naturedly, 
nor lead astray yourself. The having contributed the songs and 
music, and other reasons alleged for my introduction to your re- 
hearsals, will, I conclude, equally pass with the company for this 
additional favor, without the necessity of any farther discovery. 
But as you kindly insist upon my directions, I desire it to be done 
by a simple order to Johnson, and no gold box, nor silver box — 
not even a mulberry one : you must give me a reception Hamlet- 
like — I will have no appurtenances of welcome. I think I may, 
without vanity, congratulate you upon the piece having laid hold 
of the audience last night. A general relish was very discernible. 
I could not help agreeing with a critic who sat near me, and who 
expressed himself delighted with the genteel scenes, that the intro- 
duction of the lamplighters was too coarse to assort with the rest. 
Suppose three or four of your girls were introduced in the act of 
weaving cords of flowers, such as the dancers use in the second 
act. They might fix one end of the cord to the scene, and keep 
slipping back as they w^eave the flowers, in the manner the rope- 
makers do, which w^ould be picturesque. In that case, O'Daub's 
part might begin W'ith his conversation with the architect ; and he 
might present himself to the girls in some nonsense like the follow- 
ing : " O'Daub. — If these pretty maids would pay me with a kiss 
a-piece, 'faith, I'd paint them all round for nothing at all. Surely 
they look as bright as a May morning already, and a touch of my 
brush will make them remembered by those who never saw 'em." 
If after this the two additional verses of the song were added, the 
words would apply, and Moody's action might have effect. Should 
you approve this idea, or any one like it, the alteration is so short 
it might be studied and acted in half an hour ; but I submit it to 
you on the sudden, like many crudities with which I have troubled 
you. Lord Stanley is come to town, and very earnest to see " The 
Maid of the Oaks." I send to Johnson's for a box for Lady Betty 
to-morrow, that she may do him the honors, and I hope I shall 
succeed. If you could send me the copy this afternoon, I would 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 473 

return it in time for you to put it into the printer's hands to-mor- 
row afternoon. Beheve me, with the truest sense of the value of 
your friendship, dear sir, your faithful and obedient, etc., etc. 

J. BURGOYNE. 

GENERAL CLINTON. 
Sir Henry Clinton, an English general, son of the colonial 
Governor Clinton, was the grandson of the Earl of Lincoln. After 
distinguishino; himself in the battle of Bunker Hill in 1775, he was 
sent unsuccessfully against New-York and Charleston. He after- 
wards, in September, 1776, occupied the city of New-York. 
October 6, 1777, he assaulted and took forts Clinton and Mont- 
gomery. In 1778, he succeeded Howe in the command at Phila- 
delphia, whence Washington compelled him to retire. In May, 
1780, he took Charleston. It was he who negotiated with Arnold 
in his treason. He returned to England in 1782, and died Dec. 
22, 1795 ; a few months before, he had been appointed governor 
of Gibraltar. He published a narrative of his conduct in America, 
1782 ; Observations on Cornwallis's Answer, 1783 ; Observations 
on Stedman, 1784. 

LORD CORNWALLIS. 

Charles Cornwallis, Marquis, commander of the British army 
in America, surrendered at Yorktown, October 19, 1781 ; an event 
which brought the war to a close. In 1790, he was governor- 
general of India, and by his victories in the war with Tippoo Saib 
acquired high reputation. Again M'as he appointed, in 1805, 
governor of India ; where he died, at Ghazepore, October 5. He 
married in 1768, Miss Jones, a lady of large fortune ; who is said to 
have died of a broken heart, in consequence of his engaging in the 
American war. He published an answer to the Narrative of Sir 
Henry Clinton, 1783. 

LORD HOWE. 

Admiral Earl Howe was born in 1725, and on the death of his 
brother the general, succeeded to his title and estate. He com- 
manded the British fleet which arrived at Staten Island July 12, 
1776 ; and was named in the commission to offer proposals of 

60 



474 BIOGRAPHIC AL NOTICES. 

peace. In July, 1777, he convoyed the two hundred and seventy 
transports in which the array sailed from New-York to the Chesa- 
peake. He repaired to Newport in the winter as a safe harbor ; 
which place he relieved on the 30th Aug., 1778, when threatened 
by the Americans and French, by arriving from New-York with a 
hundred sail of ships. In September, he resigned the command to 
Admiral Garabier. On the 1st of June, 1794, he obtained a vic- 
tory over the French, and died August 5, 1799. Lord Howe was 
the brother and successor in his title of the General Lord Howe 
who fell in the attack on Ticonderoga in 1758, in whom, said 
Mante, " the soul of the army seemed to expire f and to commem- 
orate whom the province of Massachusetts Bay caused a monu- 
ment to be erected in Westminster Abbey. 

GENERAL HOWE. 

General Sir William Howe, brother of Richard, Earl Howe, 
was the successor of General Gage in command of the British 
forces in America. He first arrived at Boston in May, 1775, with 
General Burgoyne, and commanded in the battle of Bunker Hill \ 
he took possession of New-York in September, 1776 ; and was one 
of the commissioners to offer terms of peace. In July, 1777, Sir 
William sailed for the Chesapeake, and entered Philadelphia, Sept. 
27 ; he defeated the Americans on the 4th of October, same year, 
at Germantown. In May, 1778, he was succeeded by General 
Clinton. In the House of Commons, in December same year, 
when assigning his reasons for quitting his command in America, 
he particularly blamed Lord Sackville, (formerly Lord George 
Germaine,) the minister, for not sending reinforcements, nor co- 
operating in his plans ; and in the January following, Lord Sack- 
ville, if he was the author of the letter to Admiral Howe, 
returned the invective. He published a second edition of his 
narrative relative to his command in'1780; he died in 1814. 
General Charles Lee said, " Howe was the most indolent of mor- 
tals, and never took pains to examine the merits or demerits of the 
cause in which he was engaged. That the king and parliament 
formed the supreme power ; that supreme power is absolute and 
imcontrollable ; and consequently all resistance rebellion ; that he 
was a soldier and bound to obey in all cases whatever : these were 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 475 

his notions, and this his logic. He was naturally good-natured, 
and as an executive soldier all fire and activity ; brave as Ceesar. 
His understanding good, but confounded by the immensity of the 
task imposed upon him." 

GENERAL GATES. 
Horatio Gates, a major-general in the army of the United 
States, was a native of England ; is said to have been a natural 
son of Horace Walpole, Lord Orford. In early life he entered the 
British army, and laid the foundation of his future military fame ; 
he was aid to General Moncliton at the capture of Martinico ; and 
after the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, he was among the first troops 
which landed at Halifax under General Cornwallis. He was with 
Braddock at the time of his defeat in 1755, and was shot through 
the body. When peace was concluded, he purchased an estate in 
Virginia, where he resided until the commencement of the Ame- 
rican war in 1775; when he was appointed by Congress adjutant- 
general, with the rank of brigadier-general, and accompanied 
Washington to Cambridge. In August, 1777, he took command 
of the northern department, and succeeded in capturing Bur- 
goyne in October. Congress passed a vote of thanks, and ordered 
a medal of gold to be presented to him by the president. His 
conduct towards his conquered enemy was marked by a delicacy, 
which does him the highest honor ; he did not permit his own 
troops to witness the mortification of the British in depositing their 
arms. After Gen. Lincoln was taken prisoner, he was appointed, 
June 13, 1780, to the command of the southern department • 
August 16, he was defeated by Cornwallis at Camden. After the 
peace he retired to his farm in Berkley county, Virginia, where 
he remained until the year 1790, when he came to reside in New- 
York ; having first emancipated his slaves, and made a pecuniary 
provision for such as were not able to provide for themselves. 
Some of them would not leave him, but continued in his family. 
On his arrival at New-York, the freedom of the city was presented 
to him. In 1800, he accepted a seat in the legislature ; his poli- 
tical opinions did not separate him from many respectable citizens, 
whose views differed widely from his own ; he died April 10, 1806, 
aged 77. A few weeks before his death, he wrote to his friend Dr. 



476 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 

Mitchell, then at Washington, on some business, and closed his letter, 
dated Feb. 27, 1806, with the following words : — " I am very weak, 
and have evident signs of an approaching dissolution. But I have 
lived long enough, since I have lived to see a mighty people ani- 
mated with a spirit to be free, and governed by transcendant 
abilities and honor." He retained his faculties to the last ; he 
directed that his body should be privately buried, which was ac- 
cordingly done. General Gates was a whig in England, and a 
republican in America ; he was a scholar, well versed in history 
and the Latin classics. While he w^as just, hospitable and gene- 
rous, his manners and deportment yet indicated his military cha- 
racter. 

JUDGE DANA. 
Francis Dana, LL.D., chief justice of Massachusetts, was a 
descendant of Richard Dana, who died at Cambridge about 1695. 
His father was Richard Dana, an eminent magistrate ; he was 
born at Charlestown in August, 1742, and after graduating at 
Harvard College in 1762, studied law with Judge Trowbridge ; he 
passed the year 1775 in England, where he had a brother, Edmund, 
a minister at Worcester, who died in 1823. In 1776, he was ap- 
pointed a delegate to Congress, and taking his seat in November, 
1777, continued in that body until in November, 1779, he accom- 
panied Mr. Adams to Paris, as a secretary of legation. He was 
elected December, 19, 1780, as minister to Russia; where he 
remained, though not publicly received, from August, 1781, till the 
close of the war, returning in December, 1783. He was chosen a 
delegate to Congress in 1784 ; and a member of the Massachusetts 
Convention, where he advocated the constitution. The office of 
envoy extraordinary to France in 1799, he declined; and Mr. 
Gerry was deputed in his stead, with Messrs. Marshall and Pinck- 
ney. Appointed chief justice of Massachusetts in 1792, he dis- 
charged very impartially and ably the duties of that office until 
his resignation in 1806 ; he died at his seat in Cambridge, April 
25, 1811, aged sixty-eight. Judge Dana was a learned lawyer, 
and presided in court with great dignity ; his opinions on the bench 
were remarkable for their clearness and perspicuity. In his politics 
during the days of violent excitements, he was strongly attached 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 477 

to the federalists. His correspondence while in Europe, is con- 
tained in Sparks's Diplomatic Correspondence, vol. 8th. 

COLONEL PICKERING. 

Hon. Timothy Pickering, LL. D., the son of a prominent citi- 
zen of Salem of the same name, was born there on the 17th July, 
1746, and graduated at Harvard College in 1763. The memorable 
distinction of conducting the first resistance in arms to the power of 
the mother country fell to his lot, at his native place, on Sunday the 
26th of February, 1775, when the march of Col. Leslie's regiment 
of royal troops was resolutely intercepted, and his further progress 
arrested by him at the head of the militia, at the bridge over the 
North River. The draw of the bridge was hoisted, and Col. Pick- 
ering presented himself on the opposite side. He informed Col. 
Leslie that the military stores he came to seize were the property 
of the people, and that they would not be surrendered without a 
struggle. Col. Leslie ordered his men into a large gondola at the 
wharf, to secure a passage over the river. In a moment Major 
Sprague, the owner of the gondola, sprang on board and beat a 
hole through the bottom, by which it was sunk. While effecting 
this he was wounded by the soldiers with their bayonets, and thus 
was here shed the first blood of the Revolution. The Rev. Mr. 
Barnard now interposed, and by judicious persuasions prevented 
the impending catastrophe ; and Leslie, pledging his honor, that if 
Col. Pickering would let him pass the bridge, so that it might ap- 
pear a voluntary act on his part, he would abandon the attempt to 
seize the stores ; and this being acceded to on the part of Col. Pick- 
ering, the former returned immediately to his transports at Marble- 
head, and re-embarked his regiment from the harbor that night. 

Col. Pickering marched at the head of the Essex regiment as 
soon as he heard of the Lexington affair, on the 19th of April of 
the same year, to Medford, in order to intercept the enemy, but was 
not in season. He also took up the line of march with his regi- 
ment for the heights of Charlestown on the 17th June, but arrived 
too late to participate in the affair of Bunker Hill. Col. Pickering 
compiled a manual for the drill and exercise of the troops, which 
was in general use until the Baron Steuben published his more ex- 
tensive work. He was appointed the same year a judge of the com- 



478 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 

mon pleas, and succeeded Mr. Curwen as admiralty judge for the 
district including Boston and Salem. In the autumn of 1776, he 
commanded the Essex regiment under General Washington in 
New Jersey. 

The following is an extract of a letter from General Washing- 
ton to Congress, dated at Morristown, May 24, 1777 : 

" I beg leave to inform Congress, that, immediately after the 
receipt of their resolve of the 26th of March, recommending the 
office of adjutant general to be filled by a person of ability and 
unsuspected attachment to our cause, I wrote to Colonel Timothy 
Pickering, of Salem, offering him the post, in the first instance, and 
transmitting at the same time a letter to Colonel WilHam R. Lee, 
whom Congress had been pleased to mention, to be delivered to 
him in case my offer could not be accepted. This conduct in pre- 
ference of Col. Pickering, I was induced to adopt from the high 
character I had of him, both as a great military genius, cultivated 
by an industrious attention to the study of war, and as a gentleman 
of liberal education, distinguished zeal, and great method and ac- 
tivity in business. This character of him I had from gentlemen of 
distinction and merit, and on whose judgment I could rely. 

" When my letter reached Col. Pickering, at first view, he 
thought his situation in respect to public affairs would not permit 
him to accept the post. That for Col. Lee he sent immediately to 
him, who, in consequence, repaired to head quarters. By Col. 
Lee I received a letter from Col. Pickering, stating more particu- 
larly the causes which prevented him accepting the office when it 
was offered, assuring me that he would, in a little time, accommo- 
date his affairs in such a manner as to come into any military post 
in which he might be serviceable and thought equal to. 

" Here I am to mark with peculiar satisfaction, in justice to 
Col. Lee, who has deservedly acquired the reputation of a good 
officer, that he has expressed a distrust of his abilities to fill the ap- 
pointment intended for him ; and hearing that Col. Pickering would 
accept it, he not only offered, but wished to relinquish his claim to 
it in favor of him, whom he declared he considered, from a very in- 
timate and friendly acquaintance, as a first-rate military character ; 
and that he knew no gentleman better or so well qualified for the 
post among us. Matters being thus circumstanced, and Colonel Lee 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 479 

pleased with the command he was in, I wrote to Col. Pickering on 
his return, who accepted the office, and is daily expected." 

He immediately marched wath the army to Pennsylvania, and 
was by the side of Washington at the battle of Brandywine, on 
the 14th September ; he was also present at that of Germantown, 
October 4. He was soon after elected by Congress a member of 
the Board of War, with Generals Gates and Mifflin. The arrange- 
ment of the staff department was also intrusted to him and General 
Mifflin. In August, 1780, he succeeded Gen. Greene as quarter- 
master-general, and discharged the arduous and complicated duties 
of that department with promptness and fidelity. 

Col. Pickering was employed in various negotiations with the 
Indian tribes, and in 1791 was appointed postmaster-general, which 
office he held till 1794, when he succeeded Gen. Knox as secretary 
of war. In August, 1795, he temporarily had charge of the state de- 
partment, and upon the resignation of Mr. Edmund Randolph, in 
December, received the appointment of secretary of state. This 
was the last office he held under Washington ; from which he was 
removed by President Adams, in May, 1800. It was this circum- 
stance to which the eloquent and eccentric John Randolph alludes 
when Col. Pickering's political course was attacked in the House 
of Representatives some years after ; on that occasion Randolph 
declared that he would gladly surrender all his own riches and 
honors to be able to say, what that patriot (Pickering) could say, 
viz., " that he ever enjoyed the unbounded confidence of Washing- 
ton while living — and the enmity of his successor." 

On Col. Pickering's removal from office, he commenced the 
settlement of new lands in the back woods of Pennsylvania ; but 
soon after disposing of them, he returned to Massachusetts, and at 
Wenham, near his native town, he, like Cincinnatus, cultivated 
with his own hands a farm which he purchased. He could not 
long be spared from public life, and from 1803 to 1811 he was a 
senator of the United States, and from 1814 to 1817 he represented 
his district in Congress, to the delight and satisfaction of his con- 
stituents. He died at Salem on the 29th June, 1829, aged 84. 
His active life afforded but little leisure for literary pursuits, yet 
his writings were vigorous and elegant. From early life he was a 
professor of Christianity. In the service of his country he was 



480 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 

» 

faithful, disinterested, and energetic. His feelings were strong, 
and in his political controversies he was ardent and sometimes ve- 
hement ; but his exemplary morals, strict integrity, and pure prin- 
ciples satisfied all of his sincerity. Col. Pickering has left a num- 
ber of descendants ; the most distinguished is the great philologist, 
the Hon. John Pickering, LL. D., his eldest son, now president of 
the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. 

JUDGE BLOWERS. 

Hon. Sampson Salter Blowers, a native of Boston, and grand- 
son of the Rev. Thomas B. Blowers, second minister of Beverly, 
Massachusetts, graduated at Harvard College 1763, of which in- 
stitution he is now senior alumnus, or the oldest living graduate. 
He was born in March, 1742, and is consequently one hundred 
years of age. He studied law with Governor Hutchinson, and 
married the daughter of Benjamin Kent, a lawyer celebrated for 
his eccentricity and wit. Mr. Blowers was, with John Adams and 
Josiah Quincy, jr., engaged to defend Capt. Preston and the British 
soldiers, on their trial at Boston, November, 1770, for what was 
termed " the Boston massacre." On the eve of the Revolution, in 
1774, he sailed for England, and returned in the autumn of 1778, 
just in time to find his name in the proscribing act of the Massa- 
chusetts Provincial Assembly. He was forthwith imprisoned, but 
soon liberated and sent in a cartel to Halifax. From this time he 
pursued his profession there ; was raised to the supreme bench in 
1795 ; became the chief justice in 1801, and resigned all his honors 
in 1803. Judge Blowers has never revisited his native place. His 
sister died at Boston in March, 1842, at the age of ninety-eight ; 
she was the widow of an officer of marines, who fell on board the 
Alliance frigate, in an action with two British sloops of war. May, 
1781. 

The following notice of Judge Blowers appeared in the Boston 
Daily Advertiser, in March last : — 

" The old man of whom ye spake ; is he yet alive V 

The Hon. Sampson Salter Blowers, of Halifax, [Harvard Uni- 
versity, 1763,] this day completes his century of years ; the elder 
patriarch of Harvard's living alumni. He was a native of Boston, 
his father living (as we some time ago learned from an authority 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 481 

near in blood) at the time in Quaker-lane, now Congress-street : a 
nephew of Pyara B., merchant, [H. U. 1721,] and grandson of Rev. 
Thomas B., second minister of Beverly, [H. U. 1695.] Young 
Blowers entered upon the study of law with Hutchinson, then simply 
judge of probate and lieutenant-governor ; and married the daughter 
of Benj. Kent, Esq.,* [H. U. 1727,] an attorney at law in Boston, 
" celebrated for his eccentricity and wit," who, like himself, be- 
came a refugee, and died in Halifax, at an advanced age, in 1788. 
In November, 1770, then in his noviciate at the bar, he was em-^ 
ployed as junior counsel to Messrs. Adams and Quincy (the latter 
his classmate) in behalf of the eight British soldiers of the 29th 
regiment on their trial for what was long and most absurdly called 
" the Boston massacre." The victims of that night (March 5th, 
1770) though magnified by the effervescence of the time into mar- 
tyrs of liberty, did but poor credit indeed to the name, and as to 
most of them, abundantly provoked the death they found. Gordon, 
with strange looseness for one who was writing in the midst of the 
scene, says, (Vol. I. 194,) " The soldiers had the same counsel as 
their commander." But Robert Auchmuty, who according to Eliot 
made, in defence of Capt. Preston, a plea so memorable and per- 
suasive, as " almost to bear down the tide of prejudice against him, 
though it never swelled to a higher flood," had no concern in the 
succeeding trial j while the subject of this notice was certainly not 
retained in the earlier one. On the eve of the Revolution ( 1774) 
S. S. B., for some reason or object sailed for England, and returned 
in the fall of 1778, just in time to find his name in the proscribing 
act of the provincial assembly of Massachusetts, (October,) which 

* Kent was a minister of Marlborough, a very brief period [1733-'35] ; 
though so unclerical was his deportment, and his liumor, that we might rather 
liave wondered had liis stay been longer. He removed to Boston ; and sa late 
as 1769, his name is found, in somewhat odd association, with those of the 
most prominent and strenuous Whigs of the place, as a committee of safety 
in a communication to Dr. Franklin. To him it is, we suppose, that the doc- 
tor, in a letter written from Philadelphia, within the last year and a half of 
his own life refers : — " You tell me our poor friend Ben Kent is gone ; I hope 
to the regions of the blessed : or at least to some place where souls are pre- 
pared for those regions. I found my hope on this, that though not so orthodox 
as you and I, he was an honest man and had his virtues. If he had any hy- 
pocrisy, it was of that inverted kind, with which a man is not so bad as he 
seems to be." (See Sparks's FrankHn, VII. 366, X. 460.) 

61 



482 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 

could not then have been passed many weeks. He was iraprisoBC'cf 
forthwith ; but within the next fortnight was despatched in a cartel 
to Halifax. From this time, as we are told, he steadfastly pursued 
his profession there ; being raised to the supreme bench in 1795, 
becoming its presiding head in 1801, and resigning all his honors in 
1833. 

Though his lot was cast with the obnoxious side, Judge B. 
stood by no means alone among his companions. The class of 
1763 was fruitful in loyalists, generally also refugees : — Bliss of 
Springfield, and Upham of Brookfield, (the last, father of the pre- 
sent minister of Salem,) were constituted a few years after judges 
of the highest court of New Brunswick -* Dr. John Jeffries oi Bos- 
ton, (after signalizing himself in a then novel sphere,) returned a 
few years in the rear of the peace, to resume practice in his native 
town ; Hooper of Marblehead, second son of " old King Robert," 
and Porter, for a time an eminent attorney in Salem, both died in 
England. 

Judge B. has left behind him in the race the longest-lived of 
his classmates by more than ten years. Col. Pickering, of Salem, 
one of the three latest survivors, died Jan. 29, 1829. The last of 
the trio, Samuel Perley, settled successively at three several places 
in New Hampshire, and finally in Gray, Maine, finished his course 
at the latter, November 28, 1831. Of the thirty-six hundred de- 
parted sons.of Harvard, our living Methuselah (with the exception 
of the venerated Dr. Holyoke) has alone fairly rounded his century ; 
Mr. Porter, of Ashfield, on Connecticut river [H. U. 1745] who 
died February, 1820, having failed only one month of that honor- 
able mark.f 

* No other class perhaps can show so many instances of the highest 
judicial elevation. Three refugee judges of the supreme court ! to which must 
be added the Hon. Nathan Cws/itn^, of Scituate — a zealous Whig — who deeply 
ingratiated himself with the popular party by the spirit of his decisions, as 
first judge of admiralty in 1776, against captured British vessels ; and who at 
a later period [1789-1801] was one of the highest bench of Massachusetts. 
There is yet one other distinction to which the class of 1763 appropriates. 
T!\ie first English Oration, ever heard upon the Commencement boards was 
pronounced by Jed. Huntington of Norwich, Conn., (afterwards well known 
as a general officer in our revolutionary contest, and father of the late Rev. 
Josh. Huntington, of the Old South Church.) 

t In such a connection as this, and for the sake of the narrow circle who 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 483 

That the usual concomitants of such longevity should be here 
also found in its train, few will probably be surprised to read. It 
has been well known for four or five years past that decay had 
been coming over the mind of this centennial patriarch ; and on 
the recent progress (autumn of 1840) of the Hon. J. Q. Adams 
through the provinces of Nova Scotia, by whom Judge B. also was 
visited, this fact was, anew confirmed. 

This notice must not be closed without adding, what all readers 
(it need hardly be qualified) will be surprised to be told : — There 
yet lives in this city, long sequestered from the world, a sister of the 
distinguished graduate, before us, a widow of more than sixty years' 
date, "whose days have almost even run with his," (ninety-eight,) 
a coincidence alike extraordinary and interesting. The husband 

are curious in such matters, it may not be amiss to specify the twelve alumni 
■who have reached the highest point of longevity. Those unasterized, it will 
be observed, we presume not to number their days, but give their age at the 
moment we are writing. 

* 1746. Dr. E. A. Holyoke, of Salem, died March 31, 1S29, 100 years 7 
months. 

1763. Hon. S. S. Blowers, Halifax, Nova Scotia, 100 years. 

* 1745. Rev. N. Porter, minister of Chebacco parish (Ipswich) and of Ash- 
field, died February 29, 1S20, 99 years 11 months. 

* 1759. Hon. Paine Wingate, minister a few years at Hampton Falls, 
N. H., and afterwards in high civil trusts, died at Stratham, N. H., March 7, 
1S38, 98 years and 10 montlis. 

* 1744. Col. Peter Frye, formerly of Salem, and in various public trusts, 
died (as a refugee) at Camberwell, Surrey, near London, February 1, 1S20, 
(liis birthday,) 97 years. 

* 1712. Mr. John Nutting, Salem, successively grammar schoolmaster, 
register of deeds, and collector of the port, at different times, died May 20, 
1790, 96 years 4 months. 

* 1753. Rev. Peter Thacher Smith, minister of Windham, Me. [1762-'90] 
d. as P. T. S. "Esq.," October, 1826, 95 years 3 months. 

1765. Dr. Ezra Green, surgeon in the continental navy, under John Paul 
Jones, and since physician in Dover, N. H., 95 years ten months. 

* 1728. Thaddeus Mason, Esq., register of deeds for Middlesex, died at 
Cambridge, May 1, 1802, 95 years 4 months. 

1767. Hon. Timothy Farrar, New Ipswich, N. H., formerly a judge of 
the S. J. C. of N. H., 94 years 8 months. 

* 1741. Mr. Joseph Waldo, merchant in Boston, died ("as a refugee) 
in Bristol, England, April, 1816, 94 years. 

* 1710. Rev. Joseph Adams, minister of Newington, N. H., 37i years, 
died May 26, 17S3, 94 years. 

jipril 2, 1842. 



484 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 

of the latter, a lieutenant of marines in the celebrated and ever- 
fortunate Alliance frigate, fell in an engagement of that ship on 
her passage from France, with two sloops of war, May, 1781. 
Though not wanting in inducements to the contrary therefore, it is 
worthy of record that Judge B. has never, as we are told, revisited 
his native place, since he went forth from it an exile with the fla- 
ming sword behind him, interdicting his return. 

T. BRINLEY. 

Thomas Brinley, a merchant of Boston, graduated at Harvard 
College, 1744. He was an " addresser^' of Gov. Gage and Gov. 
Hutchinson. A refugee in England in 1775. Proscribed in the 
act of banishment of the assembly of Massachusetts, Sept., 1788. 
Probably died abroad. 

N. COFFIN. 
Nathaniel Coffin, Esq., of Boston, the father of Sir Isaac Coffin, 
Bart, who was his fourth and youngest son. Mr. Coffin graduated 
at Harvard College in 1744 ; was cashier of the customs at Boston ; 
an " addresser" of Gov. Gage ; a refugee in 1775 ; was proscribed 
in the banishment act of 1778, and died in England before Novem- 
ber, 1783. 

GOV. CASWELL. 

Hon. Richard Caswell, of North Carolina, at the head of a 
regiment Feb. 1776 ; he defeated General McDonald with a party 
of fifteen hundred Scottish emigrants and ignorant and disorderly 
frontier inhabitants, styling themselves " loyalist regulators" at 
Morris Creek bridge, about sixteen miles from Wilmington, with 
the loss of seventy killed and wounded, and fifteen hundred excel- 
lent rifles. His force was but one thousand strong, and the victory 
of essential service to the American cause. 

Besides being a member of the first congress, he was president 
of the convention which formed the constitution of North Carolina, 
under which he was governor from 1777 to 1780, and from 1785 
to 1787. He died at Fayctteville, Nov. 20, 1789. His equanimity 
of temper endeared him to his friends and commanded the respect 
of his opponents ; for his constant watchfulness of the welfare of 
the people and his private virtues prevented his having enemies. 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 485 

JOSEPH HEWES. 

Hon. Joseph Hewes, of North Carolina, as a member of con- 
gress early patronized the celebrated John Paul Jones, and was 
ever his confidential correspondent. It is to Mr. Hewes's discrimi- 
nating judgment of character, in no small degree, that we owe the 
train of unsurpassed naval victories achieved by that heroj for 
there was great opposition to his preferment on the score of 
foreign birth and want of influential connections, which latter con- 
sideration had great weight at that period. Jones relied inplicitly 
on Mr. Hewes, and in a letter says, " I will cheerfully abide by 
whatever you think right," and to him he referred the Hon. Robert 
Morris, respecting his claim for rank, w^ho ever after was his friend. 

DR. SHIPPEN. 

William Shifpen, M. D. of Philadelphia, graduated at Nassau 
Hall, New Jersey, in 1754, and completed a medical education at 
Edinburgh. He delivered in 1764, at Philadelphia, the first course 
of anatomical lectures ever pronounced in America. He was the 
founder of the medical school, which finally rivalled that of Edin- 
burgh. He was early opposed to " the supremacy of parliameni 
over the colonies in all cases whatsoever," and, in 1777, was ap- 
pointed director general of the medical department in the army 
of the United States. Dr. Shippen died at Germantown, July 11, 
1808, in the seventy-fifth year of his age. 

GOV. MIFFLIN. 

Thos. Mifflin, of Pennsylvania, was actively engaged in oppo- 
sition to the measures of the British parliament. He was a member 
of the first congress in 1774, and was among the first commissioned 
at the organization of the continental army, having been appointed 
quarter-master-general. In October, 1788, he succeeded Dr. 
Franklin as president of the supreme executive council. In Sep- 
tember, 1790, the constitution for Pennsylvania was formed by a 
convention, over which he was chosen the first governor. He pos- 
sessed extraordinary powers of elocution, which he exercised with 
success during the insurrection in Pennsylvania in 1794. He 
retired from the gubernatorial chair at the close of the year 1799, 



4S6 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 

and on the 20th Jan. 1800, died at Lancaster in the fifty-seventh 
year of his age. 

JUDGE ALLEN. 

William Allen, chief justice of Pennsylvania, was the son of 
"William Allen, an eminent merchant of Philadelphia, who died in 
1725. On the approach of the Revolution he retired to England, 
where he died, September, 1780. His wife was a daughter of 
Andrew Hamilton, whom he succeeded as recorder of Philadelphia 
in 1741. He was much distinguished as a friend to literature. 
He patronized Benjamin West, the historical painter. By his 
counsels and exertions Dr. Franklin was much assisted in estab- 
lishing the college in Philadelphia. He published " the American 
Crisis," London, 1774, in which he suggests a plan " for restorrog 
the dependence of America to a state of perfection." His princi- 
ples seem to have been not a little arbitrary. On his resignation 
of the office of chief justice, to which he had been appointed in 
1750, he was succeeded till the Revolution by Mr. Chew, attorney- 
general, and Mr. Chew by his son Andrew Allen. This son died 
in London, March 7, 1825, aged eighty-five. At the close of 1776 
he put himself under the protection of Gen. Howe, at Trenton, 
with his brothers John and William. He had been a member of 
congress and of the committee of safety ; and William a lieutenant- 
colonel in the continental service. 

GEN. REED. * 

Joseph Reed graduated at Nassau Hall, New Jersey, in 1757. 
He engaged with zeal in opposition to parliament, was of the com- 
mittee of correspondence, and afterwards president of the conven- 
tion of New Jersey. On the organization of the army, he became 
first aid to General Washington; the next year adjutant-general. 
While he was a member of congress, in 1778, the commissioners 
from England arrived, and one of them. Gov. Johnstone, addressed 
private letters to him, Francis Dana, and Robert Morris, to secure 
their influence towards the restoration of harmony, with intimations 
of honors and emoluments. Mr. Reed's former despondence being 
known, a lady, supposed to be the wife of Dr. Adam Ferguson, (the 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 487 

secretary of the commissioners,) assured him as from Gov. John- 
stone, that ten thousand pounds sterling- and the best office in 
America should be at his disposal, if he would effect a reunion. 
He replied that " he was not worth purchasing, but such as he 
was, the king of Great Britain was not rich enough to do it." 

In October, 1778, he was chosen president of Pennsylvania, 
which office he held till the autumn of 1781. He died March 5, 
1785, aged forty-three, having visited England for his health the 
year before without good effect. 

Mr. Reed published remarks on Gov. Johnstone's speech in 
parhament, with authentic papers relative to his propositions in 
1779, and an address to the people of Pennsylvania in 1783. 

WILLIAM PYNCHON. 

William Pynchon, Esq., an eminent counsellor at law, of Salem, 
Mfissachusetts, was a loyalist, but did not leave thu country. The 
windows of his house in Summer-street were broken by the mob 
on demanding his recantation as a Hutchinsonian addresser, pre- 
vious to the Revolution^ and he left them long in ruins, except that 
they were boarded up, in testimony of the licentiousness and law- 
lessness of the times. Mr. Pynchon was a native of Springfield, 
and graduated at Harvard College in 1743 ; he died, March 14, 
1789, aged sixty-eight. 

JOSEPH LEE. 
Hon. Joseph Lee, of Cambridge, Mass., was the son of a Salem 
merchant. Having remained in Boston during the siege, he sub- 
jected himself to unpopularity with the patriots, although his luke- 
warmness in the loyalist principles prevented his becoming an 
object of pubhc notice. He was judge of the common pleas for 
Middlesex ; and died at his seat in Cambridge, December, 1802, 
at the advanced age of ninety-three years. His brother, Thomas 
Lee, Esq., a merchant of Salem, graduated at Harvard College in 
1722 ; and during the revolutionary war resided at Newark, New 
Jersey. He had been appointed mandamus counsellor, but was 
compelled by the people to resign, Sept. 2, 1775. 

JUDGE OLIVER. 
Hon. Andrew Oliver, of Salem, son of Lieut. Gov. Andrew 



488 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 

Oliver, and nephew of Chief Justice Peter Oliver, graduated at 
Harvard College in 1749 ; studied law ; was often a representative 
to the assembly, and a judge of the common pleas for Essex 
previous to the Revolution. He was one of the founders of the 
American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a member of the 
American Philosophical Society at Philadelphia ; he was reckoned 
among the best scholars of his day, and possessed fine talents. 
Judge Oliver was never fond of public life, but ardently attached 
to his books and his friends. Besides an Essay on Comets, which 
was published in 1772, several valuable communications of his 
are contained in the first volume of the Transactions of the American 
Academy. He was honored with a commission of mandamus coun- 
sellor, which he declined ; he married Mary, daughter of Chief 
Justice Lynde, and several descendants remain of the second and 
third generations ; he died in December, 1799, aged sixty-eight. 
Judge Oliver was a loyalist, and the only member of his family 
who did not renounce his country in consequence of the Revolution. 

BENJAMIN GOODHUE. 
Hon. Benjamin Goodhue, was born at Salem, Massachusetts, 
October 1, 1748, and graduated at Harvard College in 1766. He 
early embarked in commerce, with credit and success ; he was a 
whig of the Revolution ; represented the county of Essex in the 
senate of his native state, from 1784 to 1789, when he was elected 
a representative to the first United States Congress under the new 
constitution ; and with Mr. Fitzsimmons of Philadelphia, formed 
our code of revenue laws, a majority of which have remained in 
force to this day. In 1796, Mr. Goodhue was elected a senator in 
congress for Massachusetts, where he was distinguished as chair- 
man of the committee of commerce, but resigned and retired from 
public life in 1800 ; his colleague in the senate was Caleb 
Strong, for many successive years the popular governor of Massa- 
chusetts. Mr. Goodhue's politics were of the Washington school; 
and that party is now generally admitted to have been the purest 
ever known in our country. He died July 28, 1814, leaving an 
irreproachable name to his only surviving son, Jonathan Goodhue, 
Esq., of New-York ; a merchant, who in character and credit has 
stood second to none in this commercial emporium, during a resi- 
dence of thirty-six years. 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 489 

DR. HOLYOKE. 

Edward Augustus Holyoke, M.D., L.L.D., son of President 
Holyoke of Harvard College, was born August 13, 1728, and 
graduated in 1746. In 1755, he married Judith, daughter of Col. 
Benjamin Pickman of Salem; and after her death, which occurred 
within the year, Mary, daughter of Nathaniel Viall, Esq., of Boston. 
" The period of the Revolution was a trying one to him, and he 
never loved to dwell upon the recollection of it ; his feelings in 
the spring and summer of 1775 were intensely painful. In referring 
to that period, he said he thought he should have died with the 
sense of weight and oppression at his heart ; he had sent his family 
to Nantucket, and the loneliness of his home increased the feeling 
of desolation. Most of his intimate friends and near connections 
favored the royal cause ; and his own education had attached him 
to the established order of things, while his peaceful temper shrunk 
from the turmoil of a revolution. Although most distinguished men 
who had adopted the royal cause, found it expedient to leave the 
country, it does not appear that he was ever impeded in the prose- 
cution of his professional business or studies for a single day. Once 
only he committed himself, by signing a complimentary address 
to Governor Hutchinson, in common with a number of the most 
distinguished citizens of the town of Salem, when the governor 
was about leaving the country. He afterwards felt himself obliged, 
as well as a number of his associates, to publish a sort of apology 
for this act ; which " recantation,'^ as it was called, contained 
nothing that was servile or disgraceful. He died March 31, 1829, 
at the great age of one hundred years. 

" In deeds of piety and benevolence he was ever active, and 
his gifts were bestowed with the most scrupulous secrecy ; and 
from his intimacy in the famiUes of all classes, seldom misapplied." 

He had been a practising physician in Salem for seventy-nine 
years. On some days he made a hundred visits ; and at one 
period, there was not a dwelling-house in Salem which he had 
not visited professionally. About fifty medical gentlemen of Boston 
and Salem gave him a public dinner on his centennial anniversary. 

JUDGE LYNDE. 
Hon. Benjamin Lynde, of Salem, chief justice of the supreme 

62 



490 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 

court, (as was his father of the same name,) was born at Salem, 
and graduated in 1718, at Harvard College. He was judge of 
probate from 1745 to 1771 ; he presided in November, 1770, at 
the trial of Captain Preston and his soldiers, for the part they took 
in what was called " the Boston massacre." He resigned his seat 
on the bench of the supreme court in 1771, and died October 3, 
1781, aged eighty-one. It was a remarkable coincidence, that 
father and son should have been chief justices of the supreme 
court, and occupied a seat on that bench between them for nearly 
sixty years. Judge Lynde's daughter, Mary, was the wife of the 
Hon. Andrew Oliver of Salem, author of the Essay on Comets. 

JUDGE ROPES. 

Hon. Nathaniel Ropes, of Salem, born in 1727, was graduated 
at Harvard College in 1745, and applied himself to the study of 
the law. The violent measures in opposition to government were 
obnoxious to him ; and when he found he could no longer be use- 
ful there, he retired from the council in 1769, and from the bench 
of the superior court just before his death, in the spring of 1774 j he 
was firm in loyalist principles. 

After ineffectual negotiations with Gov. Hutchinson, the in- 
flexible assertor of royal prerogative, at the termination of the first 
session of 1773, it was resolved, " that any of the judges who while 
they hold their offices during pleasure shall accept support from the 
crown, independent of the grants of the general court, will discover 
that he is an enemy to the constitution, and has it in his heart to 
promote the establishment of arbitrary government." In February, 
1774, four of the judges, Trowbridge, Hutchinson, Ropes and 
Gushing, on the appeal being made by the assembly, replied that 
they had received no part of the allowance from the king ; which 
was deemed satisfactory. Judge Ropes' house was assailed, not- 
withstanding, by a mob, and the furniture and windows throughout 
broken the night before his death, (by small-pox,) which event it 
doubtless accelerated. 

With the exception of the reports of his decisions in the su- 
preme court, the following obituary notice from his political oppo- 
nents is all that is on record respecting him : 

From the Essex Gazette, March 22, 1774. 

" Died, on the 18th inst, in the forty-eighth year of his age, the 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 491 

Hon. Nathaniel Ropes, some years since representative of this town 
in the general assembly, afterwards a member of the council, 
chief justice of the common pleas, and judge of probate of wills 
for the county of Essex, and also a justice of the superior court for 
this province." 

Judge Ropes married a daughter of the Rev. John Sparhawk 
of Salem, and their deceased sons were merchants of that place. 
Nathaniel married a daughter of Dr. Putnam, and John a daugh- 
ter of Jonathan Haraden, Esq., a distinguished naval commander 
in the Revolution against Great Britain. Their daughters married 
William Orne, Jonathan Hodges, and Samuel Curwen Ward, also 
merchants of Salem, all deceased ; of their descendants many are 
now living. 

THOMAS ROBIE. 

Thomas Robie, Esq., of Marblehead, a son of Dr. Thomas Ro- 
bie, who was graduated at Harvard College, in 1708, and after 
being a resident fellow or tutor there, established himself in the 
practice of physic at Salem, and married a daughter of Major Ste- 
phen Sewall. The subject of this notice became a merchant, and 
married a daughter of the Rev. Simon Bradstreet, who was the 
great-grandson of Gov. Bradstreet, called the " Nestor of New 
England." Mr. Robie being strongly on the side of the royal 
government, was an addresser of Gov. Hutchinson, and quitted the 
country about the commencement of the war ; he first went to 
Halifax, but afterwards to London, February 5, 1776. He passed 
his time of exile mostly in Halifax, where one of his daughters 
married Jonathan Stearns, Esq., another refugee, who graduated 
at Harvard College in 1770, became attorney-general of Nova 
Scotia, and died 1798 ; another was married to Joseph Sewall, 
Esq., late treasurer of Massachusetts. His son, Simon Bradstreet 
Robie, Esq., of Halifax, solicitor of the province of Nova Scotia, is 
a gentleman of great wealth and respectability. Mr. Thomas Robie 
returned after the peace, and re-embarked in commercial pursuits 
in Salem, to a limited extent. He was amiable, intelligent and 
exemplary, and died at Salem about thirty years since, well es- 
teemed. 



492 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 

JOHN SARGENT. 

John Sargent, Esq., a merchant of Salem, who became a refu- 
gee and was banished by the act of 1778. 

JUDGE CHIPMAN. 
Hon. Ward Chipman graduated at Harvard College, 1770, 
grandson of Rev. John Chipman of Beverly, and son of John C, 
Esq., of Marblehead. Mr. Chipman studied law in company with 
Jonathan Sewall and Thomas Aston Coffin, (a cousin of Sir Isaac 
Coffin,) afterward secretary of Sir Guy Carleton, and in 1784 
commissary-general at Quebec. Mr. Chipman became judge of 
the supreme judicial court of New Brunswick, and died at Freder- 
icton, February 9, 1824. He was brother-in-law of the late Hon. 
William Gray, and retained an affection for New England, though 
an exile. His son, of the same name, and successor to his station 
and honors, was the most conspicuous member of the class which 
graduated at Harvard College, in 1805. 

COL. MURRAY. 

CoL. John Murray was a representative of influence in the assem- 
bly of Massachusetts for many years from Rutland. Daniel Bliss, 
Esq. married one of his daughters, the other the Hon. Joshua Up- 
ham, aid to Sir Guy Carleton, afterward judge of supreme court, 
Brunswick. His son Daniel graduated at Harvard College 1771 ; 
a mandamus counsellor, was a major of dragoons, proscribed in 
1778 ; lived on half-pay 1830. His son Samuel graduated at 
Harvard College 1772, acccompanied the British troops to Lexing- 
ton in 1775, and died before 1785; he was proscribed in 1778. 

BENJAMIN FANEUIL. 

Benjamin Faneuil, Esq., a merchant of Boston, and with Joshua 
Winslow, consignee of one-third of the East India Company's tea 
destroyed in 1773 ; was a refugee to Halifax, afterwards in Eng- 
land. 

JAMES BOUTINEAU. 

James Boutineau, Esq., attorney of Boston, father-in-law of John 
Robinson, commissioner of customs, who made the personal attack 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 493 

on James Otis, Esq., which produced so great a derangement of mind 
in the latter, as to lead to his withdrawal from the public service. 

CAPT. FENTON. 

Capt. John Fenton, expelled, being a loyalist, from the assem- 
bly of New Hampshire, July, 1775, on which account he expressed 
himself freely as to public measures. This enraged the populace, 
and he fled to the governor for protection ; they placed a mounted 
field-piece before the door, threatening to discharge it, when he 
was delivered up and sent to Exeter lor trial. Gov. Wentworth 
upon this took refuge in the fort. 

Capt. Fenton had been a captain in the navy, but sold out his 
commission ; he was permitted to retreat to England. 

JOHN ERVING, JUN. 

CoL. John Ekving, son of Hon. John E., of Boston, graduated 
at Harvard College, 1747, was colonel of the Boston regiment of 
militia, a warden of Trinity church, a mandamus counsellor in 
1774, a refugee, proscribed in 1778, died at Bath, England, June 
17, 1816, aged eighty-nine. He married a daughter of Gov. 
Shirley ; his son. Dr. Shirley Erving, entered Harvard College in 
1773, but his education was cut short by the Revolution ; he be- 
came a respectable physician at Portland, Me., and died at Boston, 
July 7, 1813, aged fifty. five. The widow of Dr. Erving is still 
living at Boston, aged eighty-two. She has two sons and one 
daughter ; the latter the wife of Rev. B. C. C. Parker, of the Epis- 
copal church. 

JONATHAN SIMPSON. 

Jonathan Simpson graduated at Harvard College, 1772, son-in- 
law to John Borland, Cambridge ; was a refugee, proscribed in 
1778 ; was a commissary of provisions in the British army, at 
Charleston, S. C. ; closed his days at Boston, December 7, 1804, 
aged eighty-two. 

RICHARD ROUTH. 

Hon. Richard Routh was collector of the customs at Salem ; 
married Abigail, a daughter of Wm. Eppes, Esq., Virginia, (a 



494 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 

granddaughter of Col. Benjamin Pickman, of Salem.) At the 
death of Mr. Eppes, which soon after occurred, his widow married 
Dr. Sylvester Gardner of Boston. Mr. Routh became a refugee, 
and was collector of the customs for the island of Newfoundland, 
and subsequently its chief justice ; he died in 1801. His son, Sir 
Randolph Isham Routh, is commissary-general to the British army 
in Canada ; auother son, H. L. Routh, Esq., is a merchant of high 
character in New-York ; others are engaged in commerce in dif- 
ferent parts of Europe. 

DR. BYLES. 

Rev. Mather Byles, son of the Rev. Mather Byles, D. D., 
graduated at Harvard College, 1751, was minister at New London, 
Conn., the desk of which was closed to him in 1768 ; he was then 
an Episcopal minister of Boston till the Revolution, when he was a 
refugee, and proscribed in the act of 1788. He died a rector at St. 
John's, New Brunswick, in March, 1814. 

The father of the Rev. Dr. Byles was a distinguished minister 
and loyalist of Boston ; and for his political principles was, during 
the violent times of 1777, separated from his people, to whom he 
was never afterwards united. In 1776, he was denounced in town 
meeting as inimical to his country, and obliged to enter into bonds 
for his appearance at a public trial before a special court, at which 
he was pronounced guilty, and sentenced to confinement on board 
a guard ship, and in forty days to be sent to England with his 
family. When brought before the board of war, by w^hom he was 
treated respectfully, his sentence seems to have been altered, and it 
was directed that he should be confined to his own house, and there 
guarded. After a few weeks the guard was removed ; a short 
time after, a guard was again placed over him, and again dismissed. 
Upon this occasion he observed, in his own manner, that " he was 
guarded, reguarded, and disregarded.'' The substance of the 
charges against him was, that he continued in Boston with his 
family during the siege ; that he prayed for the king, and the 
safety of the town. He died July 5, 1788, aged eighty-two. Dr. 
Byles's first wife was a niece of Gov. Belcher, and his second, the 
daughter of Lieutenant Governor Tailer. His literary mer t intro- 
duced him to the acquaintance of many men of genius in England ; 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 495 

the names of Pope, Lansdown, and Watts are found among his 
correspondents. Pope sent him a copy of his Odyssey in quarto, 
and from Dr. Watts he received copies of his works as he pubUshed 
them. 

Mr. Mather Brown, afterwards artist to the king, a grandson 
of Dr. ByleSj embarked for Europe in 1780, with a letter of intro- 
duction from his grandfather to Harrison Gray, Esq., London, a 
firm friend of the family. 

Mr. Copley had likewise been intimate with Dr. Byles before 
he left Boston. An amusing little circumstance took place the 
morning after the birth of Mather Brown. Mr. Copley entered the 
house full of gaiety and animation, and after congratulating the 
family, requested to see the infant. The nurse brought it ; he 
caught it from her arms and ran down stairs with it ; the nurse, 
not understanding the matter, followed him in great consternation, 
entreating for the child. When he reached the street door he laid 
it carefully on the mat, and left the house. It is to this circum- 
stance that the following letter of introduction alludes. 

" A certain ancient gentleman in New England dictates the 
following words : 

" Boston, December 5, 1780. 
" My Dear Copley : 

" Do you forget your old connections ? I am always rejoicing 
to hear of your reputation and felicities, on your side of the water. 
You will, I am very certain, be pleased to see the gray-eyed little 
boy (as you always called him, though his eyes were very black) 
that you left upon the entry-floor, at New Boston. See how times 
have turned them ! I may not write, and need not say more to 
one on whose friendship I have so firm a reliance." Here the 
old patriarch leaves off. 

" To Mr. Copley, in the solar system." 

His intention was first to go to France j and Dr. Byles desired him 
immediately to call on Dr. Franklin, with whom he was well ac- 
quainted. In a letter, dated Paris, 23, 1781, he writes : 

" Dr. Franklin has given me a pass, and recommendatory let- 
ters to the famous Mr. West. He treats me with the utmost po- 
liteness ; has given me an invitation to his house, and shown me 
many new electrical machines and experiments ; one of which, 



496 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 

contrived for perpetual motion, greatly pleased me. I delivered 
him my grandfather's message ; he expressed himself with the 
greatest esteem and affection for him, and has since introduced me 
at Versailles, as being grandson to one of his most particular friends 
in America." 

In his first letter from London, 1781, he writes : 

" In consequence of the recommendation of Dr. Franklin, at 
Paris, who gave me letters to his fellow-townsman, the famous Mr. 
West, of Philadelphia, I practise gratis with this gentleman, who 
affords me every encouragement, as well as Mr. Copley, who is 
particularly kind to me, welcomed me to his house and lent me his 
pictures, etc. At my arrival, Mr. Treasurer Gray carried me and 
introduced me to Lord George Germaine, who promised me his 
protection during my stay." 

In a letter, 1783, he thus wrote : " I have exhibited four pic- 
tures in the exhibition ; the king and queen were yesterday there." 
In 1784 : " I have painted several Americans. Yesterday I had 
two pictures shown to his royal highness the Prince of Wales ; 
they were carried to his palace by his page. He criticised them, 
and thought them strong likenesses. I believe I never told you 
that the king knew a picture of mine, in the last exhibition, of the 
keeper of Windsor Castle, and took particular notice of Mr. Gray's 
picture 5 asked v.'ho it was, and who did it, and what book he had 
in his hand. Mr. West told him it was the treasurer of Boston 
painted by his pupil, a young man, Mr. Brown of America. The 
king asked what part. He told him Massachusetts." 

In 17S5, he writes : " Among other great people, I have painted 
Sir William Pepperell and family, and the Hon. John Adams, 
ambassador to his Britannic Majesty. On the 20th of June, I had 
the honor to be introduced to the Duke of Northumberland at 
his palace ; his grace received me with the utmost politeness." 

In a letter, 1786, he writes : " I have near a hundred pictures 
of my countrymen in my rooms, which are universally known ; 
Messrs. Adams and Jefferson on one side of the room, and on the 
other, Treasurer Gray and Sir Wilham Pepperell." 

It may well be supposed that this intelligence rejoiced the 
hearts of his relatives in Boston. Dr. Byles added a postscript to 
one of his daughter Catharine's letters, in these words : " You icill 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 497 

he glad to see your grandfather^ s hand — my God, hless the lad ! — 
There you see his heart." 

ROBERT TEMPLE. 

Robert Temple, Esq., of Tenhills, near Boston, was an elder 
brother of Sir John Temple, baronet, the first consul general from 
England to the United States. Mr. Robert Temple's eldest daugh- 
ter married the Hon. Hans Blackwood, afterwards Lord Duffrin ; 
the second Temple Emmet, Esq., and youngest died single. Mr. 
Temple died in England before 1783, and his death is noticed in the 
" list of exiles who died during the Revolution," published in the 
American Quarterly Review, 1841. 

SAMUEL H. SPARHAWK. 

Samuel Hirst Sparhawk, graduated at Harvard College 1771, 
an addresser of Gov. Gage, and a refugee to England with his 
brothers Nathaniel and William, was the third son of Col. Nathan- 
iel Sparhawk of Kittery, who married the only child of Sir Wil- 
liam Pepperell, baronet, the hero of Louisburg in 1745, Mr. 
Sparhawk's brother William became heir to the estate and honors 
of his grandfather, having been created a baronet in 1774. The 
former died in Kittery, August 29, 1789, aged 38. 

STEPHEN GKEENLEAF. 
Stephen Greenleaf, of Boston, an addresser of Gov. Hutchin- 
son, May, 1774, and of Gov. Gage, in October, 1775. Was sheriff 
of Suffolk county. He died Jan. 26, 1795. 

COUNT RUMFORD. 
Sir Benjamin Thompson (Count Rumford) was born in Woburn, 
Massachusetts, in 1752, and while a clerk in the employment of 
Mr. John Appleton, merchant of Salem, first displayed his fondness 
for experimental philosophy, (when accidentally his face was 
somewhat marked by a pyrotechnical explosion,) in which he was 
afterwards a proficient under the professor cf natural philosophy at 
Cambridge, and became a teacher. He made an advantageous 
marriage, and became a major of militia; was instrumental in 
preserving the library and philosophical apparatus when the col- 
leges were converted into barracks -, as a loyalist he rendered im- 

63 



498 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 

portant services to the British generals, and was received by Lord 
George Germaine as under secretary in the office for colonial af- 
fairs. Towards the close of the war he was sent to New- York, 
and raised a regjiment of drao-oons, of which he was the colonel. 
He commanded at Huntington, Long Island, in 1782-3, where he 
caused a fort to be erected in the church-yard, contrary to the wishes 
of the inhabitants. He returned to England in 1784, and received 
the honors of knighthood and became under-secretary of state. 
Subsequently, recommended by the prince of Deux Fonts (afterwards 
king of Bavaria), he entered the service of the reigning elector pala- 
tine and duke of Bavaria, where he effected many useful reforms, 
civil and military ; among them a scheme for the suppression of 
mendicity, which he carried into execution at Munich and other 
places, providing labor for able-bodied paupers, and exciting a 
spirit of industry among the poorer classes of people, for w^hich he 
was rewarded by the sovereign of Bavaria with the commission of 
a lieut. general, several orders of knighthood, and created Count 
Rumford. He returned to England in 1799, and employed him- 
self in making experiments on the nature and application of heat 
and other subjects of economical and philosophical research. He 
suggested the plan and assisted in the foundation of the Royal In- 
stitution. In 1802 he removed to Paris, and his wife being dead, 
he married the widow of the celebrated Lavoisier. He purchased 
a country house at Auteull, about four miles from Paris, and em- 
bellished the grounds. He died there in August, 1814, leaving 
only a daughter, the offspring of his first marriage in the United 
States. Besides a great number of communications in scientific 
journals, he published four volumes of essays, political, eco- 
nomical, experimental, and philosophical. In 1796 he remitted 
five thousand dollars in three per cent, stocks, to the American 
Academy of Arts and Sciences ; the income to be appropriated as a 
premium to the author of the most important discovery on light 
and heat. By his last will he laid the foundation of that professor- 
ship to Harvard University, which has rendered his name justly 
esteemed with its friends. His useful and eventful life has been the 
subject of faithful history. He bequeathed an annuity of one thou- 
sand dollars, and the reversion of another of four hundred dollars, 
also the reversion of his whole estate, which amounted to upwards 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 499 

of twenty-six thousand dollars, " for the purpose of founding 
a new institution and professorship, in order to teach by regular 
courses of academical and public lectures, accompanied with 
proper experiments, the utility of the physical and mathematical 
sciences for the improvement of the useful arts, and for the ex- 
tension of the industry, prosperity, happiness and well-being of 
society." 

THOMAS HUTCHINSON, JUN. 
Thomas Hutchinson, Esq., eldest son of Gov. Hutchinson, a 
merchant of Boston, and, with his brother Ehsha, a consignee of a 
third of the East India Company's tea which was destroyed. He 
was a refugee, and proscribed in the act of 1778. He had been 
denounced in 1769, as a foreign importer, contrary to the agree- 
ment of the Boston merchants. He had been a judge of the com- 
mon pleas for Suffolk, from 1772 to the commencement of the 
Revolution. He died at Heavitree, near Exeter, England, in 
1811, aged 81. 

WILLIAM CLARK. 
Rev. William Clark, son of Rev. Peter Clark, of Salem vil- 
lage (Danvers,) graduated at Harvard College 1759; was the 
Episcopal minister of Quincy, from 1768 to 1777, when, in conse- 
quence of aiding two distressed loyalists to an asylum, he was 
prosecuted as unpatriotic. Being forcibly taken before the revolu- 
tionary tribunal at Boston, and refusing to swear allegiance to the 
commonwealth, he was condemned to be transported to foreign 
parts, and was immediately confined to a prison ship in the harbor. 
By the efforts of Dr. Ames, a zealous whig, in his behalf, he was 
liberated, after losing his health and speech. He went to Eng- 
land, obtained a pension, and died Nov. 4, 1815. 

FRANCIS GREENE. 
Francis Greene, Esq. of Boston, a merchant ; graduated at 
Harvard College 1760 ; a refugee, proscribed in the act of 1777 ; 
married a widow lady, by which he became step-father to two 
deaf and dumb children, and his interest in them made him an au- 
thor ; (" Essay on imparting Speech to the Deaf and Dumb," Lon- 
don, 1783.) Some changes in the funds reduced his property, and 



500 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 

in his last days he was dependent on his half pay as a British officeF^ 
having been at the capture of Havana in 1762. He died at his 
residence, Medford, April 21, 1809, aged 67. 

For the share he had in the farewell address to Gov. Hutchin- 
son, he was beset when travelling in July, 1774, through Norwich 
and Windham, Connecticut. 

COL. BORLAND. 

John Lindall Borland, eldest son of John Borland, of Cam- 
bridge, took to the profession of arms, after having graduated at 
Harvard College, 1772; and at his death in England, Nov. 16^ 
1825, he is styled a lieut. colonel of his majesty's forces. Dr. 
Francis Borland, second son of J. Borland, Esq., of Cambridge, 
graduated at Harvard College, 1774, was a physician in Portsmouthy 
N. H., a few years ; died at Somerset, Bristol Co., Mass., 1826. 

COL. BROWNE. 

Hon. William Browne, governor of Bermuda, son of Samuel 
Browne, Esq., of Salem, and a grandson of Gov. Burnet, graduated 
at Harvard College in 1755. He was colonel of the Essex regi- 
ment, and succeeded Judge Ropes on the bench of the supreme 
court in 1774, for a short time. The provincial assembly urging 
their title to nominate to judicial and civil trusts, he was requested 
to resign that office, held under the royal seal, as also the honor of 
mandamus counsellor, to which he had been called by a county 
committee, which he contrived to evade. He was one of the sev- 
enteen " rescinders^^ in 1768. In the several capacities of represent- 
ative, colonel, counsellor and judge, he rendered himself obnoxious 
by adhering to government ', which was thus incidentally noticed 
in a newspaper, when he found it expedient to take refuge in Bos- 
ton in the autumn of 1774 : 

" Agreeable to the advice of the respectable provincial con- 
gress, the training band company of Lynn, being part of the first 
regiment in the county of Essex, formerly commanded by William 
Browne, Esq., [politically deceased of a pestilent and mortal disor- 
der, and now buried in the ignominious ruins of Boston,) met on 
Monday, the 15th inst., for the purpose of choosing, etc. etc." 

Col. Browne was esteemed among the most opulent and benevo- 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 501 

lent individuals of that province prior to the Revolution ; and so 
great was his popularity, that the gubernatorial chair was offered 
him by the " Committee of Safety" as an inducement for him to 
remain and join the " sons of liberty.''' But he felt it a duty to ad- 
here to government, even at the expense of his great landed 
estate, both in Massachusetts and Connecticut, the latter compri- 
sing fourteen valuable farms, all which were afterwards confiscated. 
He went to England via Halifax, in April, 1776, and was gov- 
ernor of Bermuda from 1781 to 1790, when he returned to Eng- 
land, where he died in Percy-street, Westminster, Feb. 13, 1802, 
aged 65. Col. Browne married his cousin, a daughter of Gov. 
Wanton, of Rhode Island, and was doubly connected with the 
W^inthrop family ; the wives of the elder Browne and Gov. W anton 
being daughters of John W^inthrop, F, R. S. great-grandson of the 
first governor of Massachusetts, who graduated at Harvard College 
in 1700. Col. Browne's son William was an officer in the British 
service at the siege of Gibraltar in 1784. 

JUDGE SMITH. 
Hon. William Smith, chief justice of the province of New- 
York, (his father of the same name, was an eminent lawyer and 
judge of New-York supreme court, died 22d Nov. 1769, aged 73,) 
was graduated at Yale College, 1745 ; was a loyalist in the Rev- 
olution, and subsequently became chief justice of Canada. In 
1757, he published a history of the province of New-York to 1732, 
to which the New-York Historical Society published a posthumous 
continuation to 1762. Governeur Morris studied law with him, as 
did also many other distinguished men. 

GOV. WENTWORTH. 

Sir John Wentworth, Baronet, governor of New Hampshire, 
was born in 1736 ; graduated at Harvard College in 1755 ; was a 
son of Mark Hunking Wentworth, and nephew of Benning Went- 
w^orth, who was his immediate predecessor in the gubernatorial 
chair. He was appointed to that office in 1767, and filled it to 
the satisfaction of all parties, till the commencement of the Revolu- 
tion in 1775, when, being a loyalist, he took refuge on board a 
man-of-war in July, for Nova Scotia, and was appointed lieut. 



502 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 

governor in 1792. Soon after he went to England and was cre- 
ated a baronet, and was succeeded by Prevost of New Brunswick 
in 1808. He possessed a sound judgment, liberal views, and a 
hio-hly cultivated taste. He was the friend of learning and learned 
men. Dartmouth College was established during his administra- 
tion, and flourished under his patronage. He always endeavored 
to promote the interest of the province, and through his influence 
its settlements rapidly increased. He exerted himself to preserve 
the union between this country and Great Britain, but was obliged 
to yield to the spirit of the times, and submit to a separation. He 
greatly promoted agricultural improvements. He erected a splen- 
did mansion on his farm at Wolfsborough, on the border of Lake 
Winnipiseogoe. He died at Halifax, April 8, 1820, aged 83. He 
married the widow of Theodore Atkinson, jr., whose maiden name 
was Frances Deering, in 1769. Portraits of Sir John and Lady 
Frances are preserved at Portsmouth, New Hampshire. 

JUDGE INGERSOLL. 

Hon. Jared Ingersoll, a judge of admiralty, w^as born in Mil- 
ford, Connecticut, in 1722, and graduated at Yale College in 1742; 
settled as a lawyer in New Haven, and in 1757 was agent for the 
colony in England. He was appointed a distributor of stamps for 
Connecticut under the famous stamp act, and thereby lost his pop- 
ularity; the people compelled him to resign, August 24, 1765, 
which was soon after his return from England, but not deeming his 
resio-nation sufficiently explicit, a large number from the eastern 
part of Connecticut set off for New Haven, and meeting Mr. Inger- 
sol at Weathersfield, compelled him to renounce the office and cry 
out '^Liberty and property.'^ The next day five hundred men 
escorted him to Hartford. 

On being appointed admiralty judge for the middle district, 
ahout the year 1770, he removed to Philadelphia. In consequence 
of the Revolution he returned to New Haven, and died in August, 
1781, in his 60th year. 

ELISHA HUTCHINSON. 

Elisha Hutchinson, Esq., second son of Gov. Hutchinson, 
graduated at Harvard College 1762. He was in company with 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 503 

his eldest brother Thomas consignee of one third of the East India 
Company's tea, destroyed at Boston in 1773. He went to Eng- 
land a refugee, in 1775 ; was proscribed in the banishment act of 
1778, and resided in England till his death, which took place at 
the house of his son, Rev. John Hutchinson, Blurton parsonage, 
Trentham, Suffolk, in 1824, at the age of 8 1. 

His brother William Sanford Hutchinson, died of consumption 
in England, Feb. 20, 1780, aged 28. 

WILLIAM HUTCHINSON". 

William Hutchinson, Esq., nephew of Gov. Hutchinson, grad- 
uated at Harvard College in 1762 ; was a refugee in 1775 ; and 
died Feb. 6, 1791, in Europe, aged 57. He was a king's counsel- 
lor at the Bahamas. 

JOHN S. COPLEY. 
John Singleton Copley, Esq., a distinguished historical painter, 
was born at Boston. His mother was a daughter of Gen. Wins- 
low, and his sister the wafe of Col. Henry Bromfield, who resided 
in London, 1775. He married a daughter of Richard Clarke, Esq., 
one of the consignees of the East India Company's tea ; and being 
an addresser of Gov. Hutchinson, was early a refugee loyalist. 
Mr. Copley visited Italy in 1774, and joined his wife and children 
in England in 1776. He resumed his profession in the metropolis 
with unsurpassed success. His "Death of Chatham," "Defence 
of Gibraltar," and " Charles I. in the House of Commons," placed 
him among the first artists of the age. He died in the full exercise 
of his talent, suddenly, in 1815. Many of his superb portraits 
adorn the mansions and galleries of Massachusetts. His only sur- 
viving son. Lord Lyndhurst, as distinguished in the legal profession 
as his father was as an artist, was born in Boston in 1772, and 
graduated at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he distinguished 
himself, winning many prizes. In 1816 he w^as elected to parlia- 
ment. In 1819 became solicitor-general; in 1826, on the death 
of Lord Gifford, master of the rolls, and in 1827 lord high chan- 
cellor of England, which honorable post he at present holds for 
the third time ; all of which offices he has filled with distinguished 



504 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 

ability. He was raised to the peerage in 1827, and his armorial 
motto, " idtra jpergere,^'' may well apply to his former career. A 
sister of Lord Lyndhurst married Gardner Greene, Esq. of Bos- 
ton. 

REV. S. A. PETERS. 

Samuel A. Peters, D. D., an Episcopal clergyman, of Hebron, 
Connecticut, where he was born, December 12, 1735. He gradu- 
ated at Yale College 1757. In consequence of loyal principles he 
was dismissed in 1774 from his charge of the churches at Hebron 
and Hartford, and went a refugee to England. He remained abroad 
until 1805, when he returned to New-York. In 1817 and 1818, 
he made a journey to the west as far as the falls of St. Anthony, 
claiming a large territory under an Indian grant to Capt, Jonathan 
Carver. He is the reputed author of a History of Connecticut, pub- 
lished at London, in 1781. It is of a similar stamp with Knicker- 
bocker's History of New-York, and does but little credit to its 
author. Dr. Peters would never acknowledge the paternity of this 
work, but the fact is now well established. He died at New-York, 
April 19, 1826, aged ninety. His remains were entombed at He- 
bron. Dr. Peters was chosen bishop of Vermont, while in Eng- 
land, but did not accept the charge. 

He left one daughter, who accompanied him in exile, and mar- 
ried Mr. Jarvis, afterwards secretary of the province of Upper 
Canada ', she is now living at Queenstown. Dr. Peters also left a 
son, who died of yellow fever at New Orleans, where the eldest 
son of the latter now resides. 

TIMOTHY ORNE. 

Timothy Orne, Esq., of Salem, graduated at Harvard College 
in 1768 ; became a merchant, and married a daughter of William 
Pynchon, Esq. He died before 1791. 

MAJOR HAWLEY. 

Joseph Hawley, of Northampton, Massachusetts, was born in 
1724, was graduated at Yale College, and possessed strong natural 
powers, improved by the study and practice of the law. He early 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 505 

embarked in political life, and retired from the assembly in 1776, 
with an influence seldom equalled, obtained not less by his great 
talents than his unsullied and unimpeachable integrity. His opin- 
ioris were followed almost implicitly, and the leaders in the assem- 
bly despaired of carrying any measure to which he was opposed. 
At a time when the distresses of the war had produced disaifection, 
and a faction was organized in the western part of Massachusetts, 
in almost open resistance to the constituted authorities, he in- 
duced nearly all to sign a humble petition to government, praying 
for an act of indemnity for the past, and promising future obe- 
dience. 

Major Hawley declined all honors and employment when his 
popularity was at the highest, and thus formed an example of those 
public Spirited, generous citizens, (ready to share the peril and de- 
cline the reward,) who illustrate the idea of a commonwealth, and 
who, through the obstruction of human passions and infirmities, 
being of rare occurrence, will always be the most admired and no- 
ble ornaments of a free government. 

He was certainly a great man, and a thoroughly upright one; 
a disinterested patriot whose feelings and convictions were in be- 
half of freedom. He closed his earthly career at Northampton, 
in 1788, at the age of sixty -four. 

R. CLARK. 

Richard Clark, Esq., of Boston, graduated at Harvard College 
in 1729, became an eminent merchant, and, with his sons, was con- 
signee of a third of the East India Company's tea destroyed in 
Boston in 1773, on which account his house in School-street was 
assaulted. Went to London, where he arrived December 24, 1775. 
Was proscribed in the banishment act of the assembly of Massa- 
chusetts, October, 1778. He was one of the addressers of Gov. 
Gage on his departure from Massachusetts. He resided in London 
•till his death, at the house of his son-in-law, John Singleton Copley, 
February 27, 1795. Mr. Clark was a pall-bearer at Gov. Hutch- 
inson's funeral in 1780. Jonathan, his son and partner, who 
accompanied his father, returned to America after the peace, and 
resided in Canada. 

C4 



506 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 

T. FLUCKER. 

Thomas Flucker, Esq., secretary of Massachusetts 1771, on 
the promotion of Mr. Oliver to be heutenant governor; was a 
refugee, and passed his remaining days in London, where he died, 
February 16, 1783. His son Thomas graduated at Harvard Col- 
lege, 1773, was a lieutenant in the 60th British regiment. His 
daughter was the wife of Maj. Gen. Henry Knox, of the revolu- 
tionary army, and afterwards secretary at war. 

S. SEWALL. 

Samuel Sewall, Esq., the friend of Attorney General Jonathan 
Sewall, in exile, was a great-grandson of Ch. Justice Samuel Sewall, 
and grandson of Samuel Sewall, Esq., of Brookline, who married 
Rebecca Dudley, a daughter of the governor. His father was 
Henry Sewall, Esq., of Brookline; a gentleman much respected, who 
died there in 1771, aged fifty-two years. This son Samuel, born 
December 31, 1745, graduated at Harvard College 1761, lived 
unmarried a counsellor at law in Boston ; was an " addresser" of 
Gov. Hutchinson and Gov. Gage; left for England in 1775, was 
proscribed in the banishment act of September, 1778 ; passed the re- 
mainder of his life in England, and died at Bristol, May 6, 1811, 
aged sixty-six years. His large estate in Brookline, inherited in 
right of his mother, was forfeited. 

HARRISON GRAY. 

Harrison Gray, Esq., receiver- general of Massachusetts, was 
born at Boston, and bred a merchant. His patrimonial inher- 
itance, aided by industry, enabled him to acquire a handsome for- 
tune. In June, 1753, he was chosen treasurer of the province by 
the general court, and continued in that office till October, 1774. 
He adhered to government from the beginning of the controversy, 
but the moderation of his conduct, his superior fitness for the office, 
and the confidence in his integrity, secured him public favor through 
the stormy period which commenced soon after his first election, 
and continued until his appointment to and acceptance of the office 
of mandamus counsellor in 1774. But this was an unpardonable 
offence in the eyes of the sons of liberty. It was, however, unsoli- 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 507 

cited, unexpected, and accepted with great reluctance, being stren- 
uously pressed upon him by the leaders of the loyalist party ; and 
as most of those who had been appointed his colleagues, living in 
the country, were compelled by popular excitement to decline the 
office, he was led to believe that residing in Boston, then garrisdned 
by an army, he had no such apology for shrinking from the service, 
aad accordingly sacrificed inchnation to a conscientious sense of 
duty. In October, 1774, the royal government being ended in fact, 
the provincial congress resolved, " that no more taxes he paid to 
him,'' and soon after made choice of Henry Gardner for his suc- 
cessor. This authority he could not be expected to recognise ; he 
therefore retained the books and files at his office, till the evacuation 
by the British troops, and then left them in exemplary order ; they 
are still in the public archives of Massachusetts, and show the mo- 
del of a faithful state treasurer. He might perhaps have been jus- 
tified in retaining a lien upon these as a security against loss and 
damage to a very valuable real and personal estate which he left, 
and which was soon after confiscated ; but his high sense of official 
duty forbade his recourse to any such precaution, and he withdrew 
from a country which he loved not less than did those who stayed 
at home, taking nothing which belonged to the public ; but being 
himself a creditor to many of the principal persons among the sons 
of liberty, at the head of whom was John Hancock, who owed him 
a large sum for borrowed money, no part of which would he pay 
in his lifetime, and of which a small part only was received from 
his executors. "When the British fleet retired from Boston, Mr. 
Gray, urged by a sense of duty, with the male members of his 
family tore himself away from his adored and only daughter, Mrs. 
S. A. Otis, and went to England, where he lived to a great age 
upon a small pension from the British government. 

Perhaps no man among the many excellent persons who went 
into exile at that time, was more beloved and regretted by his po- 
litical enemies ; for a more genuine model of nature's nobleman 
never lived. 

J. FISHER. 

John Fisher, Esq,, collector of Salem in 1768, a brother-in-law 
of Gov. Wentworth, of New Hampshire ; a refugee, he was employed 



508 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 

as secretary to Lord George Germaine, the American secretary, on 
the departure of Mr. Thompson (Count Rumford) to America, in 
which office he was succeeded by Mr. Adam Woolridge in 1781. 

E. OXNARD. 

Edward Oxnard, Esq., graduated at Harvard College in 1767 ; 
afterwards a merchant at Falmouth, (Portland,) Maine, and a tem- 
porary reader at the Episcopal church at that place, from the de- 
parture of Mr. Wiswall in May, 1775, to the burning of the town. 
He was a refugee during the contest j was proscribed in the ban- 
ishment act in 1778, and returned at the close of the Revolution, 
and again embarked in commercial pursuits. He died July 2, 1803. 

JUDGE BLISS. 
Hon. Jonathan Bliss was born at Springfield, which he repre- 
sented in the assembly of Massachusetts. He graduated at Harvard 
College in 1763, and attended Lord Percy to Concord on the 19th 
April, 1775 ; was a proscribed refugee by the banishment act of 
1778 ; he had been one of the " rescinders" in Gov. Bernard's ad- 
ministration. He married a daughter of Col. John Worthington, 
of Springfield, a loyalist; another daughter married the Hon. 
Fisher Ames. He became chief justice of New Brunswick, his as- 
sociates, being Ward Chipman, and Edward Winslow, refugees, 
and sons of Harvard. He died at Fredericton, N. B., 1822, aged 
eighty years. 

GENERAL RUGGLES. 

Timothy Ruggles, born in Rochester, Massachusetts, Oct. 1711, 
eldest son of Rev. Timothy Ruggles, of that place, graduated at 
Harvard College, 1732, and soon after commenced the study of the 
law. He represented his native town in the provincial assembly 
at the age of twenty-five, and procured the passage of an act still 
in force, prohibiting sheriffs from filling writs. He practised some 
years in Rochester, when he removed to Sandwich. His reputation 
was so great that he was early and frequently employed in the ad- 
joining counties of Barnstable and Bristol, and was the principal 
antagonist of Col. Otis in causes of importance. He occasionally 
attended the courts in Worcester early in his professional career. 
He removed to Hardwick as early as 1763. In 1757 he was ap- 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 509 

pointed judge, and in 1762 chief justice of the common pleas, which 
he held till the Revolution. He was also surveyor-general of the 
king's forests, an office of profit, attended with but little labor. 
Besides professional employment, he was engaged in military and 
political occupations. In 1756, he was a colonel in the army un- 
der Sir William Johnson, in the expedition against Crown Point. 
In September of the same year, he was next in command to John- 
son at the battle of Lake Geerge, where the French army, under 
Baron Dieskau, met a signal defeat. He was actively engaged in 
the campaigns of 1756-'57, and in the following year, with the 
commission of brigadier-general, was under Lord Amherst, and 
served with him in his expedition against Canada in 1759-'60. 

Gen. Ruggles was speaker of the provincial assembly in 
1762-'63. In consequence of the grievous exaction of the British 
government, delegates were chosen by the legislature to meet the 
delegates from the other colonies at New-York, to seek out some 
public relief from immediate and threatened evils, by a representa- 
tion of their sufferings to the king and parliament. Gen. Ruggles 
was chosen as one of the delegates on the part of Massachusetts, 
and was president of that celebrated congress of distinguished men 
from nine of the colonies. At this meeting, October 19, 1765, an 
address to the king was voted, and certain resolves framed, settino- 
forth the rights of the colonies, and claiming an entire exemption 
from all taxes, excepting those imposed by the local assemblies. 
Gen. Ruggles refused his concurrence in the proceedings, for which 
he was censured by the house of representatives, and was repri- 
manded by the speaker in his place. Hutchinson says, when he 
consented to be a delegate, he expected nothing more would be 
required of him than was expressed in the vote of the assembly, 
and left the house in order to prepare for his journey ; that after- 
wards, on learning that the house had voted to instruct the dele- 
gates to insist upon the exclusive right of the colonies to tax 
themselves, he determined not to serve, but was finally prevailed 
with by his friends. In 1774, he was made mandamus counsellor, 
accepted and was qualified. Continuing firm in his adherence to 
the loyalist party, with whom were all his predilections, he was 
compelled to leave the country, and all his large estates were con- 
fiscated. He remained in Boston during the siege ; afterwards 



510 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 

spent a few months on Long Island, and then went to Nova Scotia, 
where he died in 1798, aged 87. Few in the province were more 
distinguished, and few more severely dealt with in the bitter con- 
troversies preceding the Revolution ; as a military officer he was 
distinguished for cool bravery and excellent judgment and science 
in the art of war, and no provincial officer was held in higher 
esteem for those qualities. His appearance was commanding and 
dignified, being much above the common size ; his wit ready and 
brilliant ; his mind clear, comprehensive and penetrating ; his 
judgment was profound, and his knowledge extensive. His abili- 
ties as a public speaker placed him among the first of his day ; and 
had he been so fortunate as to embrace the popular sentiments of 
the times, there is no doubt he would have been ranked among 
the leading characters of the Revolution. 

D. OLIVER. 

Daniel Oliver, Esq., son of Chief Justice Peter Oliver, a 
learned and accomplished lawyer of Worcester county, graduated 
at Harvard College in 1762. A refugee loyalist of the Revolution, 
he died at Ashted, Warwickshire, May 6, 1826, aged 82. His 
father was an antiquarian, and copied with his own hand Hub- 
bard's manuscript History of New England, which the son refused 
the loan of to the Massachusetts Historical Society for publication 
in their Collections. 

MAJOR BRATTLE. 

Thomas Brattle, graduated at Harvard College in 1760 ; an 
absentee, proscribed in the act of 1778 ; long after his return from 
England, he remained at Newport, R. I., his fate being in suspense. 
He finally recovered his confiscated house and grounds at Cam- 
bridge ; he died Feb. 7, 1801, aged 59. 

SAMUEL PORTER. 

Samuel Porter, Esq., an eminent attorney at law, of Salem, 
Massachusetts; graduated at Harvard College in 1763; an ad- 
dresser of Gov. Hutchinson in 1774, and a refugee to England ; was 
proscribed in the banishment act of 1778, and died in London, 
June, 1798. 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 511 

DR. AUCHMUTY. 
Rev. Samuel Auchmuty, D. D., brother of Robert Auchmuty, 
Esq., of Boston, graduated at Harvard College in 1742 ; was 
rector of Trinity church, New-York. The degree of D. D. was con- 
ferred on him by Oxford University ; he died March 3, 1777. His 
son, Sir Samuel Auchmuty, G. C. B., a lieut. general in the British 
army, died in 1822. 

JUDGE AUCHMUTY. 
Hon. Robert Auchmuty, of Boston, judge of the admiralty court 
in 1768 ; was a brother of the Rev. Dr. Samuel Auchmuty, rector of 
Trinity church. New- York, who died in 1777. Their father was also 
a judge of the admiralty court. The son appeared once after his 
appointment, says Eliot, in defence of Captain Preston and his 
soldiers, and his argument w^as described as so memorable and per- 
suasive, " as almost to bear down the tide of prejudice against him, 
though it never swelled to a higher flood." He was a zealous 
loyalist, and died in England ; he WTOte some of the obnoxious 
letters to Mr. Whately, surreptitiously obtained with those of the 
governor and others, 

KEY. J. TROUTBECK. 

John Troutbeck was assistant minister at King's chapel, Bos- 
ton ; a refugee, he died in exile some time before November, 1783. 

DR. OLIVER. 

Peter Oliver, of Salem, third son of Lieut. Governor Andrew 
Oliver, a refugee, was driven into Boston in 1775 ; signed the ad- 
dress to Gov. Gage ; died in London, April 4, 1795 ; surgeon in 
the British army. His widow, (daughter of Col. Peter Frye), was 
afterwards married to Admiral Sir John Knight, and died at her 
seat at Camberwell near London. 

REV. J. WISWALL. 

John Wiswall, son of the grammar school master of Boston 
of the same name, graduated at Harvard College in 1749, and was 
the first minister of the first Episcopal church at Portland, Maine, 
in 1764. When Capt. Mowatt's little squadron lay in the harbor, 
April, 1775, to which the town (then called Falmouth) shortly 



512 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 

after owed its destruction, Mr. Wiswall's intimacy as well as that 
of some other citizens with its officers, procured his arrest and close 
examination by the committee of safety. In May he left his people 
and the place, and never returned. He was proscribed in the 
banishment act of 1778. Mr. Wiswall was a curate at Oxford, 
in 1781. After the peace he came to Nova Scotia, and was in- 
duced at their urgent request to take charge of a portion of his 
former flock, with other emig-rants from the United States gathered 
at Cornwallis in that province. 

COLONEL PICKMAN. 

Benjamin Pickman, Esq. was born at Salem in 1740; graduated 
at Harvard College in 1759. He was a merchant in early life, a 
representative of the provincial assembly, and commandant of the 
first regiment of Essex county. He did not take a popular view of 
the subject of revolution, but left the country at the commencement 
of it, and consequently was proscribed, and his estate included in 
the confiscation act ; but after his return from England a portion 
of it was recovered, not however without much difficulty. Col. 
Pickman married a daughter of Dr. Toppan of Boston, and died at 
his native place in April, 1819, aged 79. He was a son of the 
Col. Pickman who died at Salem, in 1773, aged 66 ; a member of 
the provincial council and judge of the common pleas, whose 
sisters married Curvven, Ward, and Ropes, the father of Judge 
Ropes, and whose brother Samuel was governor of Tortola. 
The first mentioned Col. Pickman left a number of children. The 
late Dr. Thomas Pickman, who graduated at Harvard College in 
1791, was one, whose first wife was a daughter of Jonathan 
Haraden, Esq., a distinguished naval commander during the Revo- 
lution, on the side of America ; and after her death, Miss 
Palmer, granddaughter of Hon. Joseph Palmer, president of the 
Massachusetts provincial congress of 1776. William Pickman, 
Esq., another son, resides in Salem ; and Col. Benjamin Pickman, 
who graduated at Harvard College in 1784, and immediately com- 
menced his travels by the way of England. He married a 
daughter of Elias Hasket Derby, Esq.; was extensively and suc- 
cessfully engaged in commerce ; represented Essex south district 
in congress ; and for several years the county, in the senate of the 
state. His philanthropy was unbounded, and Salem has sustained 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 513 

a great loss by his removal to Boston, to reside with the widow 
of his son Col. Benjamin T. Pickman, late president of the senate of 
Massachusetts ; — she is a niece of the Rev. Isaac Smith, so often 
referred to in the body of this work. 

It is a remarkable coincidence, that of four successive genera- 
tions, the eldest sons bearing the same name have been colonels, 
and three of them in command of the same regiment. The last 
mentioned was for several years at Exeter academy, and com- 
pleted a commercial education in the counting-house of Messrs. P. 
and H. Le Mesurier and Co., of London, preparatory to establish- 
ing himself in mercantile business at Boston. He was an aid-de- 
camp of Gov. Brooks ; and like all his above-mentioned ancestors, 
possessed a great share of public spirit, and a dignity and elegance 
of manner rarely attained ; his many virtues array themselves be- 
fore the writer on every recollection of the friend of his youth. 

COL. FRYE. 

Peter Frye, Esq., of Salem, was born in Andover, and gradu- 
ated at Harvard College in 1744. He was a judge of the common 
pleas and register of probate for Essex county, and colonel of 
the first regiment. He was for several successive years a repre- 
sentative in the provincial assembly, and was one of the seventeen 
noted " rescinders' in February, 1768 ; a term of reproach applied 
to the minority, whose votes sustained Gov. Bernard in his demand 
that an obnoxious vote be rescinded, at the Earl of Hillsborough's 
request. In the event of refusal he was directed to dissolve the 
assembly. The vote repelling the demand was 92 to 17. Col. 
Frye adhered to government, and was a refugee in 1775. He 
married a daughter of Col. Pickman, of Salem. His daughter 
Love married Dr. Peter Oliver, and afterwards Admiral Sir John 
Knight, K. C. B., and died at her seat at Camberwell, near Lon- 
don, in 1839. Col. Frye died also at the residence of his daugh- 
ter, on the 1st of February, 1820, aged 97. He was included 
among the banished by law in September, 1778. 

SAMUEL WATERHOUSE. 

Samuel Waterhouse, Esq., was appointed collector of the cus- 
toms for Boston, in 1772 ; a loyalist in 1775 j he retreated to Phila- 

65 



514 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 

delphia soon after the battle of Lexington ; was an absentee, and 
included in the proscription act of September, 1778. 

JUDGE PUTNAM. 

Hon. James Putnam, born in 1725, in the part of Salem now 
called Danvers, was a relative of the distinguished patriot General 
Israel Putnam ; he graduated at Harvard College in 1746 ; studied 
law with Judge Trowbridge, who was ever his friend and associ- 
ate. He commenced practice at Worcester, where his office was 
soon thronged with clients, whose confidence he ever retained. 
He became eminent as a well-read lawyer, skilful in pleading and 
safe in counsel. He was appointed attorney-general of the prov- 
ince when Jonathan Sewall was raised to the bench of the court 
of admiralty, and was the last under the provincial government. 
Putnam was a firm and zealous loyalist, and took refuge in Bos- 
ton, accompanied the British army to New-York, thence to Halifax, 
where he embarked for England in 1776. 

On the organization of the government of the province of New 
Brunswick in 1783, he was appointed a member of his majesty's 
counsel, and a judge of the superior court. He resided in the city of 
St. John's, and continued in office till his death, which occurred 23d 
Oct., 1789. 

He was stern as a judge, but patient and inflexibly just. Re- 
served in private life, his wit and humor were irresistible. It was said 
(to Charles S. Putnam, Esq., of Fredericton, a descendant) by a suc- 
cessor on the bench, that he was " an unerring lawyer, never astray, 
and I am inclined to think, the best lawyer in JYorth Mmerica.^^ 

DR. RUSSELL. 

Dr. Charles Russell, son of Hon. James Russell, of Charles- 
town, succeeded to his uncle Judge Chambers Russell's estate at 
Lincoln ; graduated at Harvard College, 1757 ; married Elizabeth, 
only child of Col. Henry Vassall, of Cambridge ; sailed for Mar- 
tinique in April, 1775 ; was proscribed in the Massachusetts ban- 
ishment act of 1778 J was a physician at Antigua, where he died 
in 1780. 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 515 

JOHN VASSALL. 

John Vassall, Esq., Cambridge, graduated at Harvard College 
1757 [son of Col. John Vassall, who graduated in 1732] ; the noble 
mansion he built became Washington's head-quarters in 1775-6. 
He lived in princely style there, but, having taken a very active part 
to uphold the royal cause in vain, he resigned all to the ravagers ; 
and large estates being still left to him in Jamaica, went with his 
family to England. His loyalty went so far that he would not use 
on his arms the family motto, " scepe pro rege, semper pro repub- 
lican Of his four sons, Spencer, the eldest, rose to be a lieut. 
colonel in his majesty's service, and his gallantry at the assault on 
Monte Video, where he fell, Feb., 1807, won for him abundant praise. 

He was proscribed by the Massachusetts assembly in the ban- 
, ishment act, Sept., 1778 ; and died at Clifton, England, October 2d, 
1797, aged 60, immediately after rising from a hearty dinner. His 
widow died there, March 31, 1807. 

LIEUT. GOV. T. OLIVER. 

Hon. Thomas Oliver, the last colonial lieut. governor of Mas- 
sachusetts, a native of Dorchester, graduated at Harvard College 
1753. In 1774 he was made lieut. governor, as well as manda- 
mus counsellor, but his life had been previously so retired, and his 
habits and tastes so much in unison, as to give some color to the 
rumor of the day, that Thomas had been mistaken for Peter (the 
chief justice) in making out the commission. He is spoken of by 
the few who remember him, as a model of affability and courtesy. 
He married a daughter of Col. John Vassall ; built and occupied 
the elegant mansion in Cambridge, long the residence since of Gov. 
Gerry. Col. Oliver was a refugee, and included in the proscription 
act of September, 1778. He died at Bristol, England, Nov. 29, 
1815, aged 82. He was a man of letters, and lived in the shades 
of retirement while he was in Europe. 

CAPT. POYNTON. 

Thomas Poynton, of Salem, Massachusetts. His windows were 
broken by the mob, because he refused to recant for addressing 
Gov. Hutchinson ; retreated to England in 1775, where he died. 

T. DANFORTH. 
Thomas Danforth, Esq., son of Judge Danforth, of Cambridge, 



516 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 

where he graduated in 1762 ; pursued the profession of the law at 
Charlestown till the Revolution, when he became a refugee. He 
ended his course in London, April, 1820, where he practised many 
years in his profession. He was proscribed in the act of Massachu- 
setts, Sept., 1778. 

CHIEF JUSTICE OLIVER. 
Hon. Peter Oliver, LL. D., chief justice of Massachusetts, and 
brother of Lieut. Governor Andrew Oliver. Their father was the 
Hon. Daniel Oliver, of Boston, a member of the council, distin- 
guished alike for his piety, public spirit and philanthropy. Judge 
Oliver was born in 1713, and graduated at Harvard College in 
1730. He was appointed to the supreme bench of the province 
September 15, 1756. His residence was at Middleborough. On 
the appeal made to the judges by the general assembly in Febru- 
ary, 1774, whether they had received any part of their allowance 
from the king, he alone of all the judges dared to brave popular 
sentiment, and answered that he " had accepted the king's bounty, 
and could not refuse it in future without royal permission." This 
caused the concentrated weight of indignation to fall upon him. 
The assembly voted that he had rendered himself obnoxious to the 
people as an enemy, and immediately presented a petition for his 
removal. Articles of impeachment for high crimes and misde- 
meanors were exhibited, which Gov. Hutchinson refused to coun- 
tenance. The grand jury at Worcester, on the 19th of April fol- 
lowing, presented to the court a written refusal to serve under the 
chief justice, considering it illegal for him to preside until brought 
to answer to the above-mentioned charges. He became a refugee 
in 1775, and died at Birmingham, England, in October, 1791, aged 
79. His son Peter died at Shrewsbury, England, in 1822, aged 81. 

JUDGE RUSSELL. 
Hon. Chambers Russell, son of Hon. Daniel Russell, of Charles- 
town, Massachusetts, graduated at Harvard College in 1731. 
Was a representative from Lincoln in the legislature ; afterwards 
a judge of the supreme court of Massachusetts, from 1752 to 1761; 
also a judge of admiralty. He died Nov. 24, 1767, aged 54, in 
London, whither he went in pursuit of health. 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES, 517 

DR. LLOYD. 

James Lloyd, M. D., was born at Lloyd's Neck, Long Island, 
(New-York,) in 1728 ; a son of Henry and grandson of James 
Lloyd of Boston, who died there in 1693. At the age of seventeen 
he removed to Boston, where his two elder brothers were settled j 
one of them was agent of purchases for the British government, 
and held the office at the commencement of the Revolution. Here 
he commenced the study of medicine under Dr. Clarke, and after 
completing his studies in Paris, he commenced practice in 1752. 
He was soon after surgeon of the garrison in Castle William 
in Boston harbor, and was in extensive practice in the town and 
vicinity, before the arrival of the troops in 1775, under command 
of Sir William Howe, who sought out and renewed his acquaint- 
ance with Dr. Lloyd, his former physician. Sir William and Earl 
Percy became his tenants, having rented an adjoining estate (late 
Gardner Green, Esq.'s) then under his care, belonging to his 
relative Mr. Vassall. 

Immersed in the labors of his profession, and interfering no fur- 
ther in politics than an expression of his sentiments ; not theorizing 
as to the future, and seeing the country at large generally happy 
and increasing, it is not surprising that with many other patriotic 
men. Dr. Lloyd should have thought that the time for final separa- 
tion from the mother country had not arrived, and that a course 
less decisive might have procured a redress of grievances without 
passing through the hazards of a revolution. Events may have 
proved the errors of these opinions, but as the results of an honest 
independence of judgment, they were never disguised by Dr. Lloyd. 
He was an addresser of Gov. Gage in 1775, and consequently a 
loyalist, though never molested. In 1785 he protested against the 
alteration of the liturgy at King's Chapel, Boston. He died at 
Boston in March, 1810, " full of years and full of honors ; an orna- 
ment to his profession, an example to his survivors, with the esteem 
of all who knew him, and the blessing of those ready to perish." 
He left a daughter, Mrs. Sarah Borland, relict of Leonard Vassall 
Borland, and a son worthy of such a father, the late Hon. James 
Lloyd, LL. D., who for many years represented Massachusetts in 
the senate of the United States. 



518 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 

F. WALDO. 

Francis Waldo, second son of General Waldo of Portland, 
Maine ; he was a representative of Falmouth, now Portland, in 
1761-2, and the first collector of that port. He graduated at Har- 
vard College in 1747 ; was a refugee in 1775, and died in Kent, 
England, May 9, 1784. 

B. HALLOWELL. 

Benjamin Hallowell, Esq., a comptroller of the customs, Bos- 
ton, but resided at Medford; went to England a refugee ; at the 
peace returned to America and resided in Canada, where his 
daughter married Chief Justice Elmsly, and now resides at Toronto, 
a widow, with her son and daughter. 

D. BLISS. 

Daniel Bliss, Esq., eldest son of Rev. Samuel Bliss, of Con- 
cord, born in 1740; graduated at Harvard College in 1760; stud- 
ied law with Abel Willard, Esq., and was admitted to the bar 
May, 1765. He married a daughter of Col. John Murray, of Rut- 
land. He had a high standing at the bar, being well versed in his 
profession, and enjoying a good reputation as a general scholar, 
and as a man of high moral and religious principle. He w^as early 
imbued with principles favorable to the prerogative; but w^as never 
a bitter, nor even a warm partisan. He was urged to join the 
popular party, but his oath of allegiance awakened scruples of con- 
science, and his family ties, friendship, and society, gave force to 
his objections. He repaired to Boston with his family a few days 
before the commencement of hostilities, and thence with the British 
troops to Quebec. He was appointed commissary of the army, and 
for not making use of the facilities and opportunities which the 
office afforded for speculation, all he got for his honesty was, as he 
told a friend, to be laughed at by the British officers. 

At the close of the war, he settled at Fredericton, New 
Brunswick, where he sustained the office of chief justice of the 
inferior court, and resided till the time of his death in 1806. He 
revisited his native state, and would gladly have spent his days 
there in the midst of his early associations, but the decree of gov- 
ernment was an effectual barrier to it. 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 519 

He possessed an active and sprightly mind, with great fluency 
and fascination in conversation. Of his sons, the elder, in the 
British army, resides in Ireland; the younger, John Murray Bliss, 
is a distinguished judge in New Brunswick. 

COL. UPHAM. 

Joshua Upham, Esq., the son of Dr. Upham, of Brookfield, was 
born in that town in 1741. He was graduated at Harvard Univer- 
sity in 1763,* in a class wdth several who afterwards acted impor- 
tant parts on the general stage. One of the first woollen factories 
ever attempted in this country he established in 1768, at Brookfield. 
On finishing his professional studies, he was admitted to the bar 
in Worcester, August, 1765. He commenced practice in his 
native town, and pursued his business with successful assiduity in 
the courts, till 1776, or the following year. He removed from 
Brookfield to Boston, where he resided till 1778, and thence to 
New-York, where he continued during the remainder of the war. 
While in New- York he was aid-de-camp to Sir Guy Carleton, and 
before he left the British army, became a colonel of dragoons. 

On the organization of the government of the province of New 
Brunswick, in 1784, Upham, who had been one of the first settlers 
there, returned to his favorite science, the law. He was appointed 
judge of the highest court in the province, and sustained the impor- 
tant and responsible duties of his oflace with industry and ability. 

In 1807, he was selected by his brethren on the bench to visit 
England, for the purpose of obtaining from the government a more 
perfect organization and arrangement of the judiciary in the British 
American provinces. He fully succeeded in the object of his ap- 
pointment, but did not live to return to his country. He died in 
London in the year 1808.f While in London, he enjoyed the 

♦ The late Timothy Pickering was his class-mate and room-mate. Their 
early friendship survived the bitter and hostile spirit that grew up inter partes 
iu the revolutionary war. On the return of peace, they renewed their cor- 
respondence, which is said to have been of an affectionate and delightful 
character. 

t He was buried in the church of Mary-le-bone. Judge Upham was twice 
married. His first wife was a daughter of Col. Murray of Rutland j and the 
second a daughter of Hon. Joshua Chandler, of New-Haven. 



520 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 

friendship of Mr. Palmer, who afterwards bequeathed his valuable 
library to our university, of Sir John Wentworth, Sir William 
Pepperell, Lord Dorchester, and Mr. Percival.* 

Judge Upham held a high rank as counsellor and advocate ; 
he had a great command of language ; not a mere flow of words, 
but the music and harmony of arrangement and style j the well of 
English undefiled, and adorned with classical elegance. He pos- 
sessed, in a remarkable degree, that rare talent, fine powers of 
conversation, of which Lord Bacon laid down the true rule, and 
indulged occasionally in a happy vein of satire. With brilliancy 
and wit,f he united many virtues, and a sound judgment. " The 
prevailing excellence of his character," to use the w^ords of one 
who fondly cherishes his memory, " was a benignity of spirit, 
which seemed to affect the exercises of his intellect, as well as of 
his affections." 

Judge Upham was pleasing in his person and address, while he 
was imbued with all that grace which comes before education, 
and which education can hardly bestow. Like Bliss, he was of 
that peculiar class of the old school of manners, of which, pro- 
bably, even the youngest among us have seen some surviving 
specimens. 

COL. WILLARD. 

Abijah Willard, of that part of Lancaster now called Har- 
vard, Worcester county, Massachusetts, where he was born in 
1722 ; was appointed one of the mandamus counsellors, took re- 
fuge at Brooklyn, Long Island, and at the close of the war settled 
at Lancaster in New Brunswick, where he died, in May, 1789, 
aged 67. His family returned to Lancaster, Massachusetts, after 

* Mr. Percival, then prime minister, a few days before he was assassinated, 
sent to the son of Judge Upham £100 sterling to assist him in his education. 
This son is the Rev. Charles W. Upham, now of Salem, Massachusetts, well 
known by his historical writings. 

t Major Garden, in his interesting volume of anecdotes of the war in the 
southern department, relates an anecdote of Upham that may well be intro- 
duced here. The British troops, it will be recollected, were in red, and the 
American in blue uniforms. " About the period of the final departure of the 
British from New- York, an excellent repartee made by Major Upham, aid- 
de-camp to Sir Guy Carleton, to Miss Susan Livingstonj has been much cele- 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 521 

his death. A son and daughter are now living at the homestead ; 
the daughter was the second wife, and is now the widow of the 
Hon. Benjamin Goodhue, late senator in Congress from Massachu- 
setts. Mr. Willard was in the army in different grades, from the 
taking of Louisburg to the peace of 1763. He was at the taking 
of Quebec, where he commanded a regiment, and what is some- 
what remarkable, he raised his regiment in thirty days, and was 
ready to march for the reduction of Canada under Lord Amherst. 
There were few in his station that did more for his country than 
he, in civil or military capacity, until 1775, when the troubles with 
the mother country commenced. He was the first person perse- 
cuted for his loyalty in America, which induced him to reside 
under the British government the remainder of his life. He never 
bore arms against America ; though offered a colonel's commission 
by Gen. Howe, he refused, saying, " he ivould never pght against 
his country.^' He was commissary to the British troops at New- 
York, and much ridiculed by the officers for accounting to the 
government for various items that loose commissaries had habitu- 
ally appropriated to their own use as perquisites. 

ABEL WILLARD. 
Abel Willard, Esq., the earliest lawyer in the north part of 
Worcester county, was the son of Col. Samuel Willard, of Lancas- 
ter, who for some years was one of the judges of the court of common 
pleas. The son was born at Lancaster, Jan. 12, 1732, graduated 
at Harvard University in 1752, and studied law in Boston, with 
Benjamin Pratt, the distinguished scholar and jurist, well known 
at that period. He was admitted to the bar in Worcester, Novem- 
ber term, 1755 ; he at once went into extensive business in his 
native town, and devoted his time and opportunities to the profes- 
sion till the period of the Revolution. His talents were quite 
respectable ; he was regarded as a sound jurist, and much reliance 

brated. ' In mercy, major,' said Miss Livingston, " use your influence with 
the commander-in-chief to accelerate the evacuation of the city ; for, among 
your incarcerated belles, your meschianza princesses, the scarlet fever must 
continue to rage till your departure.' ' I should studiously second your 
wishes,' replied the major, ' were I not apprehensive that, freed from the 
prevailing malady, a worse would follow, and that they would be immediately 
tormented with the bhie devils.' ' 

66 



522 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTlCESo 

was placed upon his opinion. No one was ever a greater bene- 
factor in the neighborhood in which he lived ; instead of fomenting 
quarrels, and lending himself to the complaint of every one who 
might come to him with a list of grievances, he did all in his power 
to check the angry passions of clients, and promote peace. He 
would frequently accompany a client to the party complained of, 
and succeed in reconciling their differences. Indeed, so far did he 
overcome the prejudices of the many, then entertained against the 
profession, that he was emphatically termed the honest lawyer. 
Willard possessed that true modesty that ever marks the ingenuous 
mind ; and, although of a cast of character approaching somewhat 
to timidity, he was full of moral courage, of stern integrity, and 
unyielding purity of principle. In his person he was tall and of 
good figure. In his disposition he was mild and concihating, and 
his good qualities were marked in his benignant expression. 

In September, 1770, he formed a partnership in his profession 
with the late Judge Sprague, of Lancaster, which is believed to 
have been the earliest connection of the kind in the county of 
Worcester. He might have remained in that town in peace and 
respect, and indeed with high personal consideration, during the 
invading bitterness and the easily adopted suspicions and preju- 
dices of our revolutionary struggle ; but, alarmed at the approach- 
ing tempest, and with many others believing that it would 
overwhelm every thing in its course, he resorted to Boston during 
the impending danger, when the character of the contest became 
at once fixed, and it was impossible again to pass the dividing line. 
He left the country during the war, and died in England, Nov. 
1781. His widow* survived him, and died in Boston but a few 
years since. Col. Abijah Willard, before noticed, was his bro- 
ther. 

RUFUS CHANDLER. 

RuFUs Chandler, Esq., the son of Col. John Chandler, was 
born at W^orcester, May 18, 1747. He was fitted for college by 
the Rev. Mr. Harrington, of Lancaster, and graduated at the uni- 

* A daughter of the late Rev. Daniel Rogers ofLittleton ; another daughter 
was the wife of Samuel Parkraan, Esq., of Boston, and Rev. Jonathan New. 
hall oiSto-vf.— Address of J. Willard at Worcester, 1829. 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 523 

versity in Cambridge in 1766 ; he commenced the study of the 
law with James Putnam, and was admitted to the bar Nov. term, 
1768. From t^iat time till the closing of the courts in 1774, he 
continued in the profession at Worcester. Like most of the influ- 
ential family of his name, who had had extensive and almost 
unbounded sway in that county ab primo origine, he adhered to the 
royal party, and left the country during the war. He ever after- 
wards resided in London as a private gentleman, till his death, 
October 11th, 1823 ; he was proscribed by the act of 1778. He 
was not distinguished for eloquence, nor for great intellectual 
power, but he held a respectable rank in his profession, and gained 
much praise in the practical parts of his business ; and for his neat- 
ness, accuracy, and punctuality as an office lawyer. His fidelity 
to his clients insured him their esteem, and a very considerable 
amount of business. Through life he observed the strictest rules 
of economy, the rather from a regard for such as had a right to 
his aid, than from any love of money for its own sake. In his per- 
sonal habits he was remarkably precise ; he was the nice man ; 
he possessed great moral worth and purity, and a conciliating dis- 
position.* 

COMMODORE LORING. 

Joshua Loring, of Dorchester, Mass., was one of the five com- 
missioners of the revenue, and proscribed in the act of 1778 ; his 
son Benjamin, who graduated at Harvard College in 1772, was an 
absentee, but not proscribed ; his eldest son, Joshua Loring, jr., was 
an addresser of Gov. Gage, and proscribed in 1778. — Commo- 
dore Loring died an exile, in 178 1. 

ISAAC ROYALL. 

Hon. Isaac Royall, of Medford, was remarked by every one for 
his timidity ; he halted between two opinions respecting the Revo- 
lution, until the cannonading at Lexington drove him to Newbury- 
port, where he embarked for Europe. He was a proscribed refugee, 
and his estate, since that of Jacob Tidd, Esq., was confiscated. He 
died of small pox in England, Oct. 1781. His bounty laid the first 
professorship of law at Cambridge, and a legacy of plate to the first 

* See Mr. Willard's Worcester Address. 



524 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 

church at Medford shows that his regard for his country was not 
weakened by distance, nor seared by proscription. He bequeath- 
ed more than two thousand acres of land in Granby and RoyaUon, 
in Worcester county, for the establishment of the aforesaid profes- 
sorship. He was for twenty-two years a member of the council. 
His virtues and popularity at first saved his estate, as his name was 
not included with those of his sons-in-law, Sir William Pepperell 
and George Erving, in the " conspirators' act," — but on the repre- 
sentation of the selectmen of Medford, ^Hliat he went voluntarily to 
our ene7nies," his property was forfeited and taken under the con- 
fiscation act. He made bequests to Medford and Worcester, and 
lecracies to the clergymen. W^hile a member of the house of repre- 
sentatives, he presented the chandelier which adorns its hall. 

SIR T. BERNARD. 

Sir Thomas Bernard, Bart., D. C. L., third son of Sir Francis, 
governor of Massachusetts, graduated at Harvard College 1767 ; 
entered early at Lincoln's Inn, and was called to the bar in 1780 ; 
made treasurer of the Foundling Hospital 1795. The death of his 
brother (Sir John) in the West Indies, 1809, devolved a baronetcy 
upon him. Oxford created him soon after a doctor of the civil 
law. He was the active and liberal patron of various charities, 
and author of divers small tracts, the best known of which " The 
Comforts of Old Age,'' saw a fifth edition (12mo) in 1820. Sir 
Thomas died at Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, July 1st, 1818. — 
His sister, Mrs. King, was authoress of a volume entitled " Scripture 
Characters of Females^ 

GEORGE ERVING. 

George Erving, Esq., merchant of Boston, was a refugee includ- 
ed in the conspirators' act ; married previously a daughter of Isaac 
Royall, Esq., of Medford. He died in London, January 16th, 1806, 
aged 70. 

LORD G. GERMAINE. 

Lord George Germaine, afterwards Lord Sackville, was tried 
by court martial on account of his conduct at the battle'of Minden in 
1759, and disgraced. To him has been attributed the authorship of 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 525 

Junius's Letters ; but it is hardly possible that an officer who had 
been publicly pointed at and formally convicted by a court martial 
as a coward, would pen the following remark of Junius respecting 
himself: " His character is known and respected in Ireland as much 
as it is here ; and I know he loves to he stationed in the rear as well 
as myself." 

He was secretary of state for the American department during 
the war of the Revolution, and it is generally|admitted that his ad- 
ministration was bad. 

In a letter to Lord,Howe, on his naval conduct, attributed to Lord 
Sackville, he says, " Had your lordship and your brother saved the 
northern army, which you had abundant power to do, the rebellion, 
then in its infant state, must have been suppressed; the war with 
France and Spain had not happened ; and what is yet of more mo- 
ment to the peace and safety of the empire, that faction, which is 
daily distracting the councils of state and wrenching asunder the 
union of power which is necessary to its safety, would now hide its 
monstrous head in the dark cells of its own folly and treason." 

Gen. Howe had friends in parliament, and Lord George Ger- 
maine's orders and instructions were the subject of their philippics ; 
and they were powerful enough to make that minister retire. 

SIR W. DRAPER. 

Sir William Draper rendered himself famous by his correspon- 
dence with " Junius," in vindication of the character of the Marquis 
of Granby as commander-in-chief ; for although as a writer he was 
second only to Junius, he was foiled by him, and withdrew from the 
contest extremely mortified. He soon after left England, arrived 
at Charleston, S. C, in January, 1769, and travelled towards the 
north as far as New-York, receiving every attention on his way. 
At New-York he married Miss De Lancey,* " a lady of great connec- 
tions there and agreeable endowments," says the London Magazine 
for 1766. She died in 1778. In 1778 he was appointed Governor 
of Minorca. He built at Clifton near Bristol a monument of taste, 
and called it "Manilla House;" and he also erected in College 

* Daughter of James De Lancey, chief justice and lieut. governor of New 
York, who died in 1760. 



526 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 

Green, Bristol, a mausoleum over the remains of his parents, whom 
he delighted to honor. 

SIR WM. PEPPERELL. 

Sir William Pepperell, Bart., son of Col. Nathaniel Sparhawk, 
of Kittery, and grandson of Sir William Pepperell, Baronet, the hero 
of Louisburg, whose only daughter was mother of the subject of 
this notice. He graduated at Harvard College in 1766, and was 
for many years a member of the council of Massachusetts. After 
the decease of his grandfather, (who adopted him on the death of 
his only son Andrew,) he was created successor to his title in Oc- 
tober, 1774. He married Ehzabeth, daughter of Hon. Isaac Roy all, 
of Medford. He was a refugee, and proscribed in the act of 1778. 
He died in Dorset-street, Portman-square, Dec. 2, 1816, aged 70, 
having previously lost lady Pepperell and his only son W^illiam. His 
daughters were married as follows : — Elizabeth to the Rev. Henry 
Hutton, A. M., of London ; Mary to Sir William Congreve, and 
Harriet to Sir Charles Thomas Palmer, Bart. — Lady Palmer and 
Lady Congreve were living in 1832. 

On the 16th Nov. 1774, in a county congress, held at Wells, 
York county ,!Maine, he was denounced as follows in the fourth 
resolution passed that day : 

" Resolved — Whereas the late Sir Wm. Pepperell, honored and 
respected in Great Britain and America for his eminent services, 
did honestly acquire a large and extensive real estate in this coun- 
ty, and gave the highest evidence not only of his being a sincere 
friend to the rights of man in general, but of having a paternal love 
to this county in particular ; and whereas the said Sir William, by 
his last will and testament made his grandson residuary legatee and 
possessor of the greatest part of said estate, who hath, with purpose 
to carry into force acts of the British parliament made with appa- 
rent design to enslave the free and loyal people of this continent, 
accepted and now holds a seat in the pretended board of counsel- 
lors in this province, as well in direct repeal of the charter thereof 
as against the solemn compact of kings and the inherent rights of 
the people. It is therefore resolved, that he hath therefore forfeit- 
ed the confidence and friendship of all true friends of American 
liberty, and, with other pretended counsellors now holding their 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 527 

seats in like manner, ought to be detested by all good men : and it 
is hereby recommended to the good people of this county, that as 
soon as the present leases made to any of them by him are expired, 
they immediately withdraw all connection, commerce and dealings 
from him — and that they take no further lease or conveyance of his 
farms and mills until he shall resign his seat pretendedly occupied 
by mandamus. And if any persons shall remain or become his ten- 
ants after the expiration of their present leases, we recommend to 
the good people of this county not only to withdraw all connec- 
tion and commercial intercourse with them, but to treat them in 
the manner provided by the third resolve of this congress." 

COL. DAVID PHIPS, 

Col. DAvm Phips, son of Lieutenant Governor Spencer Phips, 
of Massachusetts, was graduated at Harvard College in 1741 ; 
was colonel of the troop of guards in Boston, 1773 ; an addresser of 
Gov. Hutchinson in 1774, and of Gage in '75; high sheriff of Mid- 
dlesex county in 1775. Driven into Boston, he went to England, 
w^hich country he left in April, 1777, for America, with Admiral 
Montague, and afterwards served under General Knyphausen. His 
house at Cambridge, afterwards Wm. Winthrop's, was confiscated. 
He died in England, July 7, 1811, aged eighty-seven, styled in 
the Gentleman's Magazine " Capt. David Phips, R. N." 

His sisters married Andrew Bordman, Judge Joseph Lee, Col. 
John Vassall, and Richard Lechmere, all magnates of Cambridge. 

Several books of the British peerage represent the family of 
the Marquis of Normanby (Lord Mulgrave) as descended from 
Sir William Phips, governor of Massachusetts in 1691. This is 
a manifest error ; Sir William having no children adopted his 
nephew Spencer Phips, (afterwards lieut. governor of Massa- 
chusetts,) father of Col. Phips, the subject of this article. The 
ancestor of Lord Mulgrave was Sir Constantine Phipps, an eminent 
London lawyer in the reign of Queen Anne. 

JOSEPH GALLOWAY. 

Joseph Galloway, an eminent lawyer and speaker of the assem- 
bly of Pennsylvania ; a member ofthe first congress, 1774; changed 
sides, and joined the British in New-York in December, 1776 5 



528 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 

went to England, and with Gen. Robertson, in 1778, misrepresented 
the state of the public mind and resources of the provinces. Col. 
Trumbull, in a letter to Gov. Trumbull, dated Sept. 12, 1780, says : 
" Mr. John Temple (afterwards Sir John, consul-general) has been 
indefatigable in his endeavors to defeat the misrepresentations of 
Gen. Robertson and Mr. Galloway at the bar of the house of com- 
mons, and to convince this country of the impracticability of coer- 
cing America. His acquaintances among the friends of America 
are the Dukes of Richmond and Rutland, Mr. D. Hartley, Dr. 
Price, Mr. Burke, etc., who pay great attention to his information." 
He died in England, 1803, aged seventy-three years, after publish- 
ing several works. Mr. Galloway appeared as an evidence against 
Gen. Howe, in the house of commons, at the instance of Lord 
George Germaine ; and Eliot says of Galloway : " Nothing can 
exceed the perfidy of that satellite of the minister of war, whose 
own ignorance and gross absurdities were more glaring than Gen. 
Howe's." 

BENJAMIN GRIDLEY. 

Benjamin Gridley, Esq., graduated at Harvard College, 1751, 
and practised law at Boston. He was an addresser of Gov. Gage; 
proscribed in the act of September, 1778. 

E. WILLIAMS. 

Elijah Williams, Esq., attorney at law, of Deerfield, Massa- 
chusetts, graduated at Harvard College, 1764 ; became an officer 
in the British army, soon after the affair at Lexington, in April, 
1775 ; returned in the spring of 1784, and received half pay during 
life. Died in 1793, aged forty-seven. 

J. JACKSON. 
Hon. Jonathan Jackson was treasurer of Harvard College from 
1807 to 1810, when he died. He was much esteemed as a man 
of talents, integrity, and of amiable and courteous manners. 

ADMIRAL WINTHROP. 

Robert Winthrop, vice-admiral in the British navy, was the 
youngest son of John S. Winthrop, Esq., of New-London, Connec- 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 529 

ticut, where he was born, Sept. 7, 1764. On his father's side, he 
was a hneal descendant of the early governors of Massachusetts 
and Connecticut, of the same name ;* his mother was EUzabeth, 
daughter of Wilham Sherriffe, Esq., of London, whose first hus- 
band was Capt. John Hay, of the British army. After the death 
of his father, young Winthrop, when fourteen years of age, left 
New-London for New-York under a flag of truce, consigned to 
the care of a maternal uncle attached to the British force stationed 
here, by whom a midshipman's warrant was obtained for him in 
the royal navy. Of his subsequent career the following notice, 
taken from an English publication,! furnishes an interesting though 
concise account. 

" May 10th, 1832, died at Dover, of paralysis, aged seventy, 
Robert Winthrop, Esq., vice-admiral of the blue. Mr. Winthrop 
was a midshipman on board the Formidable, bearing the flag of 
Sir George B. Rodney, in the memorable battle of April 12, 1782. 
He was a lieutenant in 1790, and at the conquest of Martinique, in 
1794, he commanded a battalion of seamen, attached to Prince 
Edward's brigade. In the spring of 1796, he commanded the 
Albicore sloop at the capture of St. Lucia ; and about the same 
time, he captured near Barbadoes, I'Athenienne, French corvette, 
of fourteen guns. He was afterwards appointed to the Undaunted 
frigate, and in that ship had the misfortune to be wrecked, on the 
Morant Keys, during a heavy gale of wind, August 27, 1796. His 
post commission bore date Dec. 16, following. 

" Captain Winthrop's next appointment was to the Circe, of 
twenty -eight guns, stationed in the North Sea ; and in June, 1798, 
he served in the expedition sent against Ostend. Major General 
Coote, who commanded the army employed on that occasion, has 
recorded in his despatches, ' the indefatigable exertions and good 
conduct' of Captain Winthrop, who superintended the landing of 
the troops. In the summer of 1799, Capt. Winthrop was intrusted 

* The line of descent was as follows : — 1. John Winthrop, first governor 
of Massachusetts, died in 1649. 2. John Winthrop, jr. governor of Connecticut, 
d. 1676. 3. Wait S. Winthrop, chief justice of the superior court of Mas- 
sachusetts, d. 1717. 4. John Winthrop, F. R. S., d. 1747. 5. John S. Win- 
throp, father of the admiral, d. 1776. 

t Gentleman's Magazine. London, 1832. 

67 



530 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 

with the command of a small squadron, employed on the coast of 
Holland, the boats of which, in the night of the 27th of June, very 
gallantly cut out twelve sail of merchantmen from the Wadde, 
without having a man hurt, notwithstanding they were much 
annoyed by the fire from the enemy's batteries and gun-boats. On 
the 10th of July, the boats also cut out three more valuable vessels, 
and burnt another laden with stores. 

" In the following month the Circe assisted at the capture of the 
Helder ; on which occasion all the Dutch ships lying in the Nieuwe 
Diep, together with the naval magazine at the Nieuwe Werk, con- 
taining a large quantity of stores, were taken possession of by 
Captain Winthrop. This event led to the surrender of the enemy's 
fleet in the Texel. In October of the same year, Capt. Winthrop's 
boats, under his own immediate direction, carried off from the port 
of Delfzel a sloop of war and schooner ; the Lynx of twelve guns, 
and the Perseus of eight guns. 

" In the autumn of 1800, in the expedition against Ferrol, 
Captain Winthrop commanded the Stag frigate, but which was 
unfortunately stranded in Vigo bay, on the 6th of September, and 
was obliged to be destroyed by fire, after the stores had been 
removed. 

" On the renewal of war, after the peace of Amiens, Captain 
Winthrop obtained the command of the Ardent, a sixty-four gun 
ship, stationed on the coast of Spain ; where he drove on shore 
La Bayonnaise, French frigate, of thirty-two guns and two hundred 
men, from the Havana bound to Ferrol. The crew, to prevent 
her being taken possession of, set her on fire, by which she was 
totally destroyed. The Ardent was subsequently employed off 
Boulogne, under the orders of Lord Keith. From that ship he was 
removed into the Sybille frigate, about July, 1805, and on the 3d 
of May, 1807, he captured I'Oiseau, French letter-of-marque. In 
the ensuing summer, he was appointed to the command of the 
Dover district of sea-fencibles. He attained the rank of rear- 
admiral in 1809, and of vice-admiral in 1830. 

" Admiral Winthrop married, December 23, 1804, Miss Far- 
brace, of Dover, by whom he has left a family of two sons and 
four unmarried daughters." 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 531 

THOMAS LINDALL WINTHROP. 

Thomas L. Winthrop, LL.D., half-brother of the precedhig, was 
born at New-London, Conn., March 6, 1760. His mother was the 
only daughter of Francis Borland, Esq., a merchant of Boston, and 
granddaughter of Timothy Lindall, Esq., of Salem. Mr. Win- 
throp began his collegiate course at Yale College, but finished it 
at Harvard, where he graduated in 1780. Soon after taking his 
bachelor's degree, he embarked at Nantucket for Amsterdam, in a 
merchant ship, which was captured on the passage and carried 
into an English port ; by permission of Admiral Duckworth, 
however, he was allowed to visit London on his parole, and after- 
wards travelled in the interior of the country, and on the continent. 
At the close of the war, he returned to the United States with 
Commodore Truxton, and engaged in commercial pursuits at Bos- 
ton, where he continued to reside during the remainder of a lung, 
useful, and not unhonored life. 

In 1786, Mr. Winthrop was married to Elizabeth, daughter of 
Sir John Temple, and granddaughter of Governor Bowdoin. The 
only son of the latter having no issue to perpetuate the family 
name, Mr. Winthrop's second son, the late James Bowdoin, of 
Boston, a gentleman of great personal worth and literary distinc- 
tion, assumed it by the desire of his uncle, taking with the name a 
large estate.* Another son of Mr. Winthrop, Hon. Robert C. 
Winthrop, has recently represented the city of Boston in congress, 
with distinguished reputation. 

In politics Mr. Winthrop belonged to the old republican party ; 
he was several times elected to the Massachusetts senate, and in 1826, 
was chosen lieut. governor of the state, by the votes of both political 
parties, which office he continued to fill by successive annual elec- 
tions, until his retirement in 1832. He was an active and liberal pa- 
tron of literary and benevolent institutions, over several of which he 
presided during the latter part of his life. He was for a long period 
an officer of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. At the 
time of his decease he was president of the American Antiquarian So- 
ciety, the Massachusetts Historical Society, and the State Agricul- 

* Mr. Bowdoin contributed many valuable papers to the Collections of 
the Mass. Hist. Society, being deeply conversant w^ith the early history of 
New England. 



532 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 

tural Society ; and the libraries of the two former institutions were 
greatly indebted to his liberality for many important additions to 
their historical treasures. Governor Winthrop was also a member 
of various other learned and economical institutions both in this 
country and Europe, with some of which he maintained a constant 
correspondence. Indeed, the greater part of his time for several 
years before his death was devoted to these objects, and to the 
promotion of the religious and benevolent enterprises of the day^ 
He died universally beloved for his many virtues, and respected for 
his public services, at his residence in Boston, on the 22d of Feb., 
1841, having nearly completed the eighty-first year of his age. 

Governor Winthrop was in his person tall and commanding, 
and remarkable for the elegance and suavity of his manners j 
enjoying an ample fortune, he lived in a style of generous hospi- 
tality, and for many years was in the habit of receiving at his table 
most strangers of consideration who visited the New England 
metropolis. The members of the state legislature, and of the 
numerous associations with which he was connected, have reason 
to remember the liberal character of his hospitable attentions ; and 
the latter lost in him a munificent patron and benefactor. In his 
religious opinions he was firm, but catholic and tolerant; attached 
to the communion of the Episcopal church, he died as he had lived, 
a humble and sincere Christian. 

N. GORHAM. 

Hon. Nathaniel Gokham, born at Charlestown, Mass., 1738, 
was often a member of the legislature, and in 1784 was elected to 
congress, of which body he was afterwards president. He was 
also a judge of the common pleas for several years, and assisted 
in forming the constitution of the United States, as a member of 
the convention. His early advantages were only those of a com- 
mon school, but possessing talents of a high order, he appeared to 
advantage in company with literary men. He at one time engaged 
in mercantile pursuits, but left them for public life. In debate he 
had independence enough to dissent from measures he disapproved, 
and therefore he did not escape the obloquy of the ignorant, who 
confounded all moderate men with those who were unfriendly to 
the cause of liberty. He died in 1796. 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 533 



DR. APTHORP. 

Rev. East Apthorp, D. D., born in Boston, 17-33, educated at 
Cambridge, England ; took orders, returned, and was settled over 
the church erected under his care at Cambridge, Massachusetts. 
Here he published a pamphlet in defence of the conduct of the 
" Society for Propagating the Gospel," which was attacked by 
Dr. Mayhew, who was answered by Dr. Seeker, Archbishop of 
Canterbury. This controversy rendered his situation irksome, and 
he left for England. It was thought by many, that the establish- 
ment of the Episcopal church at Cambridge was for the purpose 
of converting the students, who were generally dissenters, and 
with ulterior views, which excited the most acrimonious jealousy. 
Dr. Apthorp was afterwards successively vicar of Croydon, and 
rector of Bow church, London, which he exchanged for the pre- 
bendary of Finsbury ; he had many friends among the dignitaries 
of the church, and was generally beloved and respected. He mar- 
ried a daughter of Foster Hutchinson, Esq., brother of Gov. Hutch- 
inson. His only son was a clergyman. His daughters married Dr. 
Gary and Dr. Butler, heads of colleges, and a son of Dr. Paley. — 
His sisters were married to Dr. Thomas Bulfinch, of Boston, and 
Robert Bayard, Esq., of New-York. He published two volumes of 
Discourses on the Prophecies, delivered at the Warburton lecture, 
Lincoln's Inn, and a volume in answer to Gibbon. The last 
twenty-six years of his life he passed at Cambridge, England, with 
almost total loss of sight ; he died April, 18 16. 

R. WARD. 

Richard Ward, Esq., of Salem, son of Joshua Ward, one of 
the justices for Essex county, first appointed on the establishment 
of republican government in Massachusetts, was born in Salem, 
April 5, 1741. He ardently espoused the popular cause with his 
father, and opposed the arbitrary measures of parliament. He was 
a member of the committee of safety and protection during the 
entire period of the Revolution, and under direction of Gen. Charles 
Lee constructed at the neck the fort bearing his name, for the 
defence of the harbor and town of Salem. He accompanied Col. 
Pickering with the regiment in which he was a subaltern officer as 



534 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 

soon as the Lexington affair was known, to Medford, in order to 
intercept the enemy, but they were not in season. They also took 
up the line of inarch for the heights of Charlestown, on 17th June, 
but arrived too late to participate in the affair of Bunker Hill. 

His commission, dated at Watertown, June 6, 1776, as " cap- 
tain of the third company of the frst regiment of Essex county, 
whereof Timothy Pickering, jr., is colonel,^' was granted " by the 
major part of the council of the Massachusetts Bay, in JYew Eng- 
land," and by them signed during the interval between colonial 
and republican government, on paper bearing the impress of the 
crown and the sign manual of the king, with the colonial seal ap- 
pended. The following are the signatures attached to it, and of 
those who signed it, one was afterwards president of the continental 
congress, and six were governors and lieutenant-governors of Mas- 
sachusetts: — viz., J. Bowdoin, J. Winthrop, Caleb Gushing, R. 
Derby, Jr., T. Gushing, B. Lincoln, S. Holten, Jabez Fisher, Moses 
Gill, B. White, William Phillips, Benjamin Austin, John Whet- 
comb, Henry Gardner, Daniel Davis, and D. Hopkins. Mr. Ward 
had married the daughter of George Gurvven, in 1762, and owing 
to her feeble health, the cares of his numerous family devolved upon 
him ; and its imperative claims, as well as that of their uncle's 
family, (the author of the foregoing Journal), pressed so heavily 
that he was obliged, after having served with his regiment com- 
manded by Gol. Pickering in New-Jersey, under Washington, in 
1777, to retire from the military service of his country. He was 
for a long period at the head of the town government, and a 
member of the state legislature, as well as an acting justice of the 
quorum for Essex county many years. He was from the beginning 
prominent in the ranks of the anti-federal or old republican party, 
but never a heated partisan. 

Mr. Ward possessed great firmness and equanimity of temper, 
and his suavity of manners and obliging disposition endeared him 
to all. He died in November, 1824, in the eighty-fourth year of 
his age, and a widowed daughter only survives of his large family. 
Children of his sons, George C, Samuel C, and Richard, are 
living in different parts of the union. 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 535 

S. A. OTIS. 
Hon. Samuel Allyne Otis, a brother of the Hon. James Otis 
and General Joseph Otis, was born in 1741, and graduated at 
Harvard College in 1759. He soon after became a merchant of 
Boston. In 1776 he was first elected a representative to the gen- 
eral court, and he was also a member of the convention which 
framed the constitution of Massachusetts. During the Revolution 
he was a member of the board of war. In 1787, he was one of the 
commissioners to negotiate with the insurgents of " Shay's Re- 
bellion." He was elected a member of congress in 1788, and after 
the adoption of the new constitution was secretary to the senate of 
the United States, which office he filled with scrupulous fidelity and 
suavity of manner, without being absent from his post a single day 
during a period of thirty years, and till his death, amidst the colli- 
sion of party strife, to the entire satisfaction of all. He died at 
Washington, April 22, 1814, aged seventy -three. Mr. Otis was 
first married to the only daughter of the Hon. Harrison Gray, re- 
ceiver-general of Massachusetts, and afterwards to the widow of 
Edward Gray, Esq. His son, Samuel A. Otis, Esq., died at New- 
buryport the same year with his father. His other son is the Hon. 
Harrison Gray Otis, of Boston, long the able and eloquent repre- 
sentative of Massachusetts in the national senate. 

S. GAEDINER. 

Sylvester Gardiner, M. D., was born at Narragansett, Rhode 
Island, in 1717; commenced the practice of medicine in Boston, 
by which, and the importation of drugs, he accumulated great 
wealth ; he also inherited an extensive landed estate in Maine. 
He married the widow of William Eppes, Esq., of Virginia, who 
was a daughter of Col. Benjamin Pickman, of Salem, Massachu- 
setts, and died at Poole, England, leaving a son William Eppes, 
who married a Miss Randolph, of Bristol, England, and whose son 
is an assistant commissary-general of the British army ; a daugh- 
ter, Love Eppes, who married Sir John Lester, of Poole, and Abi- 
gail Eppes, who married Richard Routh, Esq., also a loyalist. 

From his high standing and extensive acquaintance, Dr. .Gar- 
diner selected his associates firom such as were congenial to his 
taste, and his house was the resort of the literary and scientific 



536 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 

from both sides the Atlantic. Among his guests were Sir William 
Pepperell, Gov. Hutchinson, Earl Percy, Admiral Graves, Majors 
Pitcairn and Small, and General Gage. The Revolution broke up 
these associations, and after the siege of Boston he sought shelter 
at Halifax, and afterwards in England, where he passed with 
heavy heart ten years of exile. For being a refugee, his large 
estate and stores of drugs w^ere confiscated, but owing to some er- 
ror, his lands in Maine \vere recovered after his return, at the close 
of the war. He closed his eventful life at Newport, Rhode Island, 
August 8, 1786, in his 69th year. The following tribute is inscribed 
on a monument erected to his memory at Gardiner, Maine : 

Sacrum Memorise 
SYLVESTRIS GARDINER, 

Qui natus, baud obscuro genere, in insula Rhodi, 

Studuit Parisiis, et Bostoniffi diu medicinam feliciter 

Exercuit. Postquam satis opum paravisset, 

Navavit operam ad domandam ornandamque 

Hanc orientalem regionem, tunc incultam. 

Hic sylvas late patentes evertit, molas omnigenas 

^dificavit, omnia rura permultis tuguriis ornavit, 

Templum Deo erexit, 

Atque hsec loca habitantibus pater-patriae dici 

Profecto meruit. 

Vir acerrimo ingenio, medicus sciens, 

Maritus fidelis, pius in liberos, 

In obeundis negotiis vigilans, sagax, indefessus, 

Integer vitae, in sacris literis doctus, 

Christianse fidei omnino addictus, 

Ecclesiceque Anglicans observantissimus, 

Mortuus est in insula Rhodi, 
Anno Domini mdcclxxxvi, ffitatis lxxix.' 

Ut viri de ecclesia deque Republica optime meriti 

Memoriam commendaret posteris, sueeque insuper 

Erga avum venerandum pietatis monumentum extaret, 

Honorarium hoc marmor erexit, 

Nepos hseresque, 
Robertus Hallowell Gardiner. 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 537 

DR. JEFFRIES. 
Dr. John Jeffries, of Boston, son of David Jeffries, Esq., born 
Feb. 5, 1744 ; graduated at Harvard College in 1763 ; studied in 
London, and was honored with the degree of M. D. at Aberdeen in 
1769. He was a physician in Boston till the Revolution ; after- 
wards surgeon of a ship in the British squadron in Boston harbor, 
and attended the wounded at Bunker Hill; went to Halifax in 
1776 as surgeon-general, and to England in 1779, and had in both 
places professional employment under the crown. He recommenced 
his regular medical life in London in 1780, and on the 7th Jan- 
uary, 1785, he acquired a sort of eclat by crossing the English 
channel with Blanchard in a balloon, when he landed in the forest 
of Guines in France, which procured for him the attention of the 
most distinguished personages of the day, and an introduction to 
all the learned and scientific societies of Paris. He returned to 
Boston in 1789, to an extensive practice ; and delivered the first 
public lecture on anatomy, a branch of his profession of which he 
was very fond. After a successful practice of fifty-three years, he 
died at Boston on the 16th of September, 1819, aged seventy-six 
years. 

C. PAXTON. 

Charles Paxton, Esq., one of the commissioners of the customs, 
and the writer of one of the obnoxious letters to Mr. Whately, 
took refuge in England during the war. He was a pall-bearer at 
Gov. Hutchinson's funeral in 1780. Of his subsequent career we 
have no information. 

LIEUT. GOV. GOLDEN. 

Cadwallader Colden was born at Dunse, Scotland, 17th Feb., 
1688 ; he was educated at the University of Edinburgh, and devo- 
ted himself to medicine and mathematics, in both of which he made 
great proficiency. 

He emigrated to Pennsylvania in 1708, where he practised 
physic for several years, and then returned to Great Britain, and 
acquired reputation as a medical writer. He came a second time 
to America in 1716, and after passing two years in Pennsylvania, 
he settled at New-York, and the next year was appointed the first 

68 



538 BIOGUAPHICAL NOTICES. 

surveyor-general of the lands of the colony, and a master in chan- 
cery. In 1720 he was a king's counsellor under Gov. Burnet. He 
had resided on a tract of land, for which he received a patent, near 
Newburgh on the Hudson, then on the frontier, where he was ex- 
posed to attacks from the Indians. He was appointed lieut. gov- 
ernor of New-York in 1761, and occupied this station during the 
remainder of his hfe, being repeatedly at the head of affairs by the 
absence or death of several governors. While acting governor, 
the stamps arrived and were placed under his care in Fort George. 
The people assembled in great numbers, determined to destroy 
them ; but although the fort was pronounced untenable by engi- 
neers, and the people threatened to kill him, he defended his trust, 
and succeeded in securing it on board of a British man-of-war. 
He was burnt in effigy by the populace, who destroyed his car- 
riao-e. After Gov. Tryon's return in 1775, he retired to his seat 
at Flushing on Long Island, whare he died Sept. 28, 1776, in his 
89th year.* Mr. Golden wrote, besides numerous medical and bo- 
tanical essays, a valuable history of the Five Indian Nations, and 
an essay on the " Principles of Action in Matter," to which is an- 
nexed a Treatise on Fluxions. 

Among his correspondents were Linnaeus, Gronovius, the Earl 
of Macclesfield, Dr. Franklin, and many other of the most scientific 
men of his time. 

DR. COOPER. 

Myles Cooper, D. D., president of King's, now Columbia Col- 
lege, New-York, was born in 1734, and educated at the university of 
Oxford, where he graduated as master of arts in 1760. Arriving 
in New-York, and recommended by the archbishop of Canterbury 
as well qualified to assist in a college, he was received by Presi- 
dent Johnson in the most affectionate manner, and appointed pro- 
fessor of moral philosophy. After the resignation of Dr. Johnson, 
he was chosen to the presidency in February, 1763. Soon after. 
Dr. Clossey, a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin, where he had 

* The seat of Gov. Golden at Flusliing was called Spring Hill ; it was 
confiscated, and is now the property and residence of Hon. Benjamin W. 
Strong. 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 539 

also taken the degree of doctor of physic, was appointed professor 
of natural philosophy. 

A grammar school was also established and connected with 
the college, under the charge of Mr. Gushing, from Boston. The 
classes were now taught by Dr. Cooper, Dr. Clossey, and Mr. 
Harper, with great advantage. 

In 1775 Dr. Cooper was a stanch loyalist, and on being dis- 
covered as a pubUc writer on the side of the crown, a large mob 
assailed him in the night at the college, with threats against him, 
but Alexander Hamilton kept them at bay by his unsurpassed elo- 
quence, while Dr. Cooper escaped to a friend's in the upper part of 
the city, from whence he was put on board a vessel bound to Eng- 
land. This was in the month of May, 1775. 

On the 10th of the same month, prior to his departure. Dr. Cooper 
wrote to his friend and fellow-sufferer, Isaac Wilkins, Esq., who 
had preceded him to London, as follows : " All things yet in statu 
quo. On Sunday I went to Morrisania to visit Mrs. Wilkins ; she 
was as well as could be reasonably expected, after parting with 
you, and returned that evening to Castle Hill, where I hope she 
will enjoy your return in safety. I had not time, you know, to 
write by you, save to Mr. Blackburn and Mr. Vardill, but they will 
sufficiently introduce you to all whom you would wish to see for 
for the present. If I think of any thing I can do for you, I will 
write by Mr. Cooke, for Bristol next week, and I will let no op- 
portunity escape that I hear of, without giving you a line, whilst I 
continue in this country of confusion, which for the sake of the col- 
lege I am minded to do as long as I can with any degree of pru- 
dence. Should this congress be as hot as the last, we are undone; 
should cooler measures be adopted, we may yet be preserved ; for 
Britain, though stout, is exorable." 

From Oxford, Feb. 4, 1777, where he had resided for three 
months, he thus writes to the same friend then at Long Island : 
" Mr. Wetherhead wrote me about Mr. Seabury's pay ; I have ap- 
plied to the bishop of London to interfere with the admiralty, and 
hope all will be settled to his satisfaction. I wish much to hear 
from him ; in the mean time, my best respects to him, Wetherhead, 
Samuel Bayard, etc. I will write to as many as I can by this pack- 
et, but, like an improvident man, I have deferred the business to the 



540 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 

last, and now am called upon by the provost to attend some affairs 
of the college, which are agitating before the house of commons ; 
so that it is out of my power to say whether or not I shall be able 
to write another line. Dr. Clossey shall hear from me pres- 
ently." 

From Edinburgh, 26th Feb., 1779, he wrote to the same friend 
at Long Island, as follows: "I received your obliging letter of 2d 
October, in London ; I had not been there for a year before, and 
was only there then for a few days, having gone from this remote 
region into the south to take possession of a very small living pre- 
sented me by the present chancellor, from which business I returned 
as quickly as possible to this city, which has been my residence for 
fourteen months past, and wdiere I am too agreeably situated to 
think of moving unless for the better ; or unless I should be obliged 
to reside on the little living aforesaid ; or unless, which would be 
best of all, a happy termination of American disputes should enable 
me to resume my old situation; and till such an event takes place, 
I do not expect to be completely satisfied. 

" You gave me spirits by representing matters in your quarter in 
a better light than I had viewed them. Indeed, Drs. Inglis and 
Seabury had been uniform in their information, so much of it as 
came to my knowledge, of the same purport ; but the corrobora- 
tive evidence even of a layman to two priests still had its effect. I 
wish to heaven you may not be w'rong in your opinions. My most 
affectionate regards to Mr. Cutting, Mr. Golden, the Ludlows, Dr. 
Ogden, etc., whom I suppose you frequently see." 

To the same friend, care of Rev. Dr. Inglis at New- York, he 
wrote from Edinburgh, May 30, 1783, as follows : " 0, my dear 
friend ! I shed tears most copiously when I first opened your letter, 
and upon the perusal of it now in order to answer it, I am more 
affected than before. Heavens ! what confusion must you all be wit- 
nesses of in your unhappy situation. And yet I cannot help form- 
ing some hopes, that now the contest is ended the governing pow- 
ers will relax their severity, and endeavor to bring over to them 
the minds of those whose persons and properties they have posses- 
sion of. I long for accounts from New-York that I can depend upon ; 
for I have not received a line from any of my correspondents there 
since their independency j a circumstance that must occasion such 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 541 

changes in the American system as cannot be conceived, I trust, by 
the wisest at this distance. 

" 'Tis true I have taken a living ; it is in Berkshire, half-way 
between London and Bath, and twenty-six miles from Oxford ; a 
spot as dehghtful as can well be imagined, yet I don't know if ever 
I shall go thither to reside. I am as pleasantly situated here as I 
could wish to be." 

He had been for some time one of the ministers of the Episco- 
pal chapel of Edinburgh, where he died May 1, 1785, at the. age 
of 51. Dr. Cooper possessed wit and humor to a great degree ; and 
pleasing manners, united to agreeable conversational powers. Al- 
though he had long expected death, he died suddenly, soon after 
writing the following epitaph of himself: 

" Here lies a priest of English blood, 
Who, living, liked whate'er was good ; 
Good company, good wine, good name ; 
Yet never hunted after fame. 
But, as the first he still preferred, 
So here he chose to be interred ; 
And, unobserved, from crowds withdrew, 
To rest among a chosen few ; 
In humble hope that Sovereign Love 
Will raise him to the blest above." 

SIR F. BARING. 

Sir Francis Baring, Bart, born April 18th, 1750, was a son of 
John Baring, of Larkbeer, near Exeter, England, from which city the 
former was first elected to parliament on the 9th Nov. 1776, an in- 
teresting account of which is contained in the third chapter of this 
work. He early distinguished himself by his accurate knowledge and 
dexterity in financial calculations at the eventful period in which 
his public career commenced, and the reputation thus early acquir- 
ed continued throughout his life. He exhibited a just knowledge of 
the interest of his country, and an anxiety to extend her commerce. 
In negotiating the various loans required from time to time, his af- 
fluence and talents enabled him to assist the minister, and he final- 
ly became the leading member of the monied interest ; and even 
the prosperity of England, at certain periods, may be said to have 
revolved around him as its primum mobile. He was designated by 



542 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 

Mr. Erskine as " the first merchant of the world," and his services 
on all occasions of great national interest, particularly as a director 
of the East India Company and as a member of parliament, were 
too important to escape the notice of administration, and entitle 
his memory to grateful recollection. The honor of baronetcy was 
conferred upon him on 29th May, 1793. 

Sir Francis possessed such influence in the commercial world, 
that his death, which occurred on the 12th September, 1810, oc- 
casioned a sensible depression in the public stocks. He married a 
daughter of William Herring, Esq., a cousin and coheiress of Dr. 
Herring, archbishop of Canterbury. 

The sister of Sir Francis married the celebrated lawyer John 
Dunning, afterwards Lord Ashburton, which title became extinct 
at the decease of their only son. 

Sir Thomas Baring, born in 1772, succeeded his father in the bar- 
onetcy. Another son, Alexander Baring, now Lord Ashburton, be- 
came the head of the great commercial house, and did not retire from 
it until 1830. He was born in 1774, visited this continent in 1794, 
and travelled through the greater portion of the then United States 
on horseback, before 1797. He met the present king of France at 
the Falls of Niagara when there was but one house in Buffalo, and 
that a very indifferent one. Mr. Baring married a daughter of 
the Hon. "William Bingham, one of the most opulent and public 
spirited citizens of Philadelphia, then a senator in congress from 
Pennsylvania. The house of Baring, Brothers & Co. have with 
scrupulous fidelity attended to the interests of the United States as 
government agent for nearly half a century, which entitles every 
member of it to our gratitude ; and we can never too highly appre- 
ciate the services and sacrifices of Lord Ashburton in his recent em- 
bassy, which has secured to Great Britain and the United States a 
treaty satisfactory to all the right minded of both countries. 

Mr. Baring, having served as a member of the house of commons 
for many years, and held with honor, for a short period, the chancel- 
lorship of the exchequer, was elevated to the peerage in 1835, a 
proud testimonial of his distinguished abilities, and a just reward for 
a life devoted to the honor and best interests of his country. 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 543 



B. MARSTON. 



Benjamin Marston, Esq., son of Col. Benjamin Marston, of 
Salem, Massachusetts, graduated at Harvard College in 1749. Be- 
came a merchant at Marblehead, and was a refugee, proscribed in 
1778. He closed his career as a commissary in the service of the 
African Company at Baalam's Isle, on the coast of Africa, in 1793. 

E. WINSLOW, Jun. 

Hon. Edward Winslow, jr., of Plymouth, Massachusetts, was 
graduated at Harvard College in 1765; he was compelled to take re- 
fuge in Boston in 1775, and became a colonel in the British service. 

He was afterwards a counsellor and judge of the superior court 
of New Brunswick, where he died, at Fredericton, in 1815, aged 
70. He and his cousin, Pelham Winslow, were among the found- 
ers of the " Old Colony Club" in 1769, now the "Pilgrims' So- 
ciety." 

S. ROGERS. 
Samuel Rogers, merchant of Boston, who graduated at Har- 
vard College in 1765, was proscribed as an absentee, Sept. 1778, 
and returned to Boston, where he died June 1, 1804, aged 57. 

S. WILLIAMS. 
Seth Williams, Esq., of Taunton, graduated at Harvard Col- 
lege in 1755 — pursued the study of the law, and was in practice 
at the commencement of the Revolution. He was a refugee, and 
died in London previous to 1791. 

COUNT DE GRASSE. 
Francois Joseph Paul, Count de Grasse Tilly, born in 1723, 
made his first appearance in the war between England and France 
as the ally of the North American colonies, in command of the 
frigate Robuste, in the battle of Ouessant, July, 1778 ; the first se- 
rious act of hostility between the two powers, and the first step of 
the Count de Grasse in defence of American liberty. Under Count 
d'Estaing, in command of a squadron, he aided in taking the island 
of Grenada, in 1779, when the British fleet was saved from total 



544 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 

defeat by a calm at the close of the action. After three years of 
distinguished services he left Brest in 1781, in command of a fleet 
of a hundred and fifty sail, (twenty of the line,) and in thirty-six 
days fell in with Admiral Hood, then blockading Martinique, whose 
superiority of sailing alone enabled him to escape, with severe 
damage to four of his ships. 

After a short stay at Port Royal de la Martinique, he concerted 
with the Marquis de Bouilll the attack of Tobago, the success 
of which, and its rapidity of execution, are well known. 

His distinguished talents and zeal in the cause of America 
gained her entire confidence ; and measures of co-operation were 
concerted between Generals Washington and Rochambeau and the 
French admiral, which resulted in the defeat of Cornwallis at 
Yorktown, and virtually closed the war between Great Britain and 
America. Count de Grasse was solicited for protection against the 
British fleet daily expected upon the coast, for a reinforcement of 
troops, for provisions " de guerre and de bouche,'' and for 1,200,000 
francs for the more pressing necessities of the French troops. To 
all of these demands he lent most zealous and eflficient aid, and in 
the short space of twelve days he collected all his disposable naval 
force, (without endangering St. Domingo,) embarked three thousand 
four hundred troops, and by his personal influence, and the actual 
pledge of his estates in St. Domingo and France, raised the funds 
desired. The expedition (necessarily a secret one) arrived at the 
capes of the Chesapeake on the 28th August, the same day that 
Admiral Hood appeared off New-York with fourteen vessels of the 
line. He succeeded in landing the troops, and on the 5th Septem- 
ber was prepared and engaged the British fleet until nightfall, 
when they separated. After four days' vain search for his oppo- 
nents, he returned to the capes in time to intercept two frigates, 
the " Iris" and " Richmond," which w^ere leaving the bay with des- 
patches they had been unable to deliver to Cornwallis. The alhed 
armies (informed of the approach of the French fleet, by the frig- 
ate " La Concorde," on 15th August) arrived at the mouth of the 
Elk on 6th September, one hour only after the bearer of despatches 
from Count de Grasse. Count Rochambeau spoke of this coinci- 
dence as most remarkable, that a combined expedition of land and 
naval forces, the one from the north of America and the other from 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 545 

the West Indies, should both arrive in the same bay only one hour 
apart. On the 19th October, Lord Cornwallis capitulated to the 
united forces of France and America ; six thousand five hundred men 
were made prisoners of war, one hundred and sixty cannon, twen- 
ty-two flags, and forty transports fell into the hands of the allies. 

This expedition originated with Count de Grasse; the plan was 
matured by Washington, Rochambeau and himself in concert. 

To the activity of all the commanders is mainly due this tran- 
scendant success, as only eight days after the capitulation was 
signed an increased British naval force arrived off the capes with 
seven thousand troops on board ; enough, in all probability, to 
have sustained the royal authority in the south. 

Congress passed a resolution on the 28th October, to erect a mon- 
ument at Yorktown in commemoration of this great event, and also 
the following : " That the thanks of the United States, in Con- 
gress assembled, be presented to his excellency the Count de 
Grasse, for the skill and valor he has shown in attacking and beat- 
ing the British fleet, in Chesapeake Bay, and for the zeal and ar- 
dor by which he gave, by the naval force under his command, the 
most effective and distinguished succor and protection to the allied 
army in Virginia." Congress also presented him four pieces of 
cannon, inscribed as follows : " Taken from the English army, by 
the combined forces of France and America, at Yorktown, Virginia, 
August 19, 1781. Presented to his Excellency Count de Grasse, 
in testimony of the inestimable services rendered by him on that 
day." 

The cannon remained at the chateau of Tilly, fourteen leagues 
from Paris, until during the French Revolution the property and all 
its dependencies were lost to the family. 

On the 13th February, 1782, the island of St. Christopher sur- 
rendered to Count de Grasse and the Marquis de Bouille. 

In command of the united forces of France and Spain, in the 
West Indies, the count sustained his high naval reputation, and de- 
fended himself successfully against the English fleet, until the 12th 
April, when (his vessels having been injured by contact with each 
other, his own ship, the " Ville de Paris," being run afoul of by the 
" Zelee") he was attacked by eleven of the enemy. His sails torn 
and ships ungovernable, his crews fasting and worn down with the 

69 



546 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 

exertions of the previous nights, and without chance of success, 
he hauled down his flag, after combatting from eight A. M. 
till six P. M. History offers no example of a longer or more spir- 
ited naval engagement, or a more obstinate resistance. It was 
proved at a court of inquiry, that the most important manoeuvres, as 
well as nine signals from the admiral, were neglected. Count de 
Grasse (which is worthy of notice) never left the quarter-deck dur- 
ing the action, nor received a wound ; he had a hundred and twen- 
ty-one killed on board the Ville de Lyons, and a very large number 
wounded. 

Carried a prisoner to England, the hero became negotiator, and 
exerted himself with that government to incline it to peace. He 
had the gratification of taking to France, in August following, 
verbal propositions of peace to the French government, from Lord 
Shelburne, first lord of the treasury. France insisted upon the ac- 
knowledgment of the independence of the United States as a con- 
dition of the treaty, and the preliminaries W' ere signed at Paris on 
the 30th November, 1782. 

History shows that the United States are as much indebted to 
the unceasing efforts of the Count de Grasse in her favor after his 
return to Europe, as for his brilliant achievements in the Chesapeake 
and West Indies. It may be said that his life was consecrated to 
securing independence to the North American colonies ; for its ac- 
complishment he employed all his valor, all his talents, all his zeal, 
and finding his task completed, and object gained, he died on 
the 14th January, 1788, in the sixty-fifth year of his age. 

Count de Grasse left an only son, who served with honor in the 
several grades of the French army, and was decorated by Count 
Rochambeau at St. Domingo with the cross of St. Louis in behalf 
of Louis XVI. At the massacre of Cape Francois, he saved him- 
self and family on board an American vessel, which landed them in 
complete destitution at Charleston, where, with other exiles, they 
experienced the hospitality and sympathy of the inhabitants. 
Count de Grasse became a citizen of the United States, and subse- 
quently returned to the service of his country, his attachment to 
which was manifested in the campaigns of Italy and Spain. 

The French Revolution deprived him of his estates, and he has 
in vain awaited from government, to the age of seventy-eight, a 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 547 

recompense of his services. Should we do more than justice to 
the memory of one of the bravest and most devoted defenders of 
our liberties, in sharing with him the inheritance acquired by the 
united valor of our fathers ? 

The only surviving daughter of the first Count de Grasse, is the 
widow of the late Francis Depau, Esq., of this city, one of our most 
enterprising, opulent, and public spirited merchants, to whom all 
praise and credit is due for greatly extending our commerce with 
France, by establishing the first line of packets between New- 
York and Havre, 

COL. EDSON. 

JosiahEdson, Esq., of Bridgewater, graduated at Harvard Col- 
lege in 1730, was a representative in the general assembly of 
Massachusetts, from that town. He was a refugee, and banished 
by the act of September, 1778 ; he had been commissioned a man- 
damus counsellor in August, 1778, but declined serving ; he died 
previous to 1782. 

W. VASSALL. 

William Vassall, Esq., of Boston, was appointed a counsellor 
in 1774, by writ of mandamus, but did not serve ; he was a re- 
fugee, and banished by the act of September, 1778. He died in 
Surrey, England, in 1800, aged eighty-five ; he graduated at Har- 
vard College in 1733. 

JUDGE HUTCHINSON. 

Hon. Foster Hutchinson, a brother of Governor Hutchinson, 
and one of the last judges in the supreme court of Massachusetts 
under the charter, to which he was appointed in 1771. He gra- 
duated at Harvard College in 1743 ; he accepted the appointment 
of mandamus counsellor in 1774, and soon after was compelled to 
take refuge in Boston, and became an absentee. He was proscribed 
in 1778, and charged by the act of 1779, as a conspirator against 
the liberties of his country ; he died at Halifax, in May, 1799. 

N. R. THOMAS. 
Nathaniel Ray Thomas, Esq., of Taunton, Bristol county, 
Mass., was graduated at Harvard College in 1751 -, appointed by 



548 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 

writ of mandamus a counsellor in 1774, but declined serving. He 
was proscribed in the act of 1778, and died in Nova Scotia, 1791. 

PELHAM WINSLOW. 

Pelham WiNSLOw, Esq., an attorney of Plymouth, Massachu- 
setts, was a son of General John Winslow, of Marshfield ; and 
graduated at Harvard College in 1753. He was driven into Bes- 
ton, and was a major in the British service ; proscribed by the act 
of 1778 ; and died at Flushing, Long Island, in 1783. 

JUDGE LEONARD. 
Hon. Daniel Leonard, of Norton, Massachusetts, graduated at 
Harvard College in 1760 ; a member of assembly. He was a dis- 
tinguished political writer, and a member of the legal profession. 
In 1774, he was the antagonist of John Adams, in relation to " the 
rights and 'prospects of the colonies," under the respective signa- 
tures of Novanglus and Massachusettensis. He was a refugee in 
1775, and was proscribed in 1778 ; he was afterwards chief justice 
of Bermuda, and died in London, June 27, 1829, aged eighty-nine. 

COL. SALTONSTALL. 

Col. Richard Saltonstall, was the eldest son of Richard Salton- 
stall, of Haverhill, Mass., a judge of the superior court of that pro- 
vince. He was born, April 5, 1732, and graduated at Harvard 
College with distinguished honor, in 1751. Colonel Saltonsall 
entered into the military service of the province in the French war, 
in 1756, and was at Fort William Henry, Lake George, at the 
time of the memorable capitulation and massacre, August 9, 1757. 
When the Indians fell upon the unarmed prisoners, he escaped, 
and arrived a few days afterwards at Fort Edward, on the Hudson, 
nearly exhausted by hunger and fatigue. He commanded a regi- 
ment from 1760 to the close of the war. On his return to Haver- 
hill, he was appointed sheriff of the county of Essex, which office 
he held until he left the country. 

When the difficulties between the colonies and the mother 
country came on. Colonel Saltonstall W'as opposed to forcible 
resistance ; he believed that it must be ineffectual, and that the 
colonies would fall before the power of Great Britain. He was 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 549 

greatly beloved and respected ; he often represented the town in 
the general court. It was long before he lost his popularity, not- 
withstanding his opinions ; but in the autumn of 1774, a great 
number of persons collected before his house, armed with clubs, etc., 
and with threats of violence, contrary to the advice of some friends 
who were with him, and who had gone for the purpose of aiding 
in his escape, he came to the door and addressed the excited as- 
sembly with great calmness, firmness and dignity; reminding them 
of his services for his country, that he had exposed his hfe in its 
defence, etc. Seldom has a speech been more effectual ; it quelled 
the excited passions of the multitude, and they dispersed. He was 
soon after compelled to take refuge in Boston, and embarked 
for England, in 1775. 

Col. Saltonstall refused to accept a commission in the British 
army, saying, that if he could not conscientiously engage on the 
side of his country, he would not take up arms against her. His 
reputation as an officer was high, and it is supposed that he might 
have had an important command in the American army, if he had 
embraced the popular cause. 

Col. Saltonstall was proscribed by the law of 1778, and passed 
the remainder of his days in England. In one of his letters, written 
soon after the peace, he expressed great affection for the delightful 
place of his nativity ; but he added, — " I have no remorse of con- 
scierice for my past conduct. I have had more satisfaction in a 
private life here, than I should have had in being next in command 
to General Washington, where I must have acted in conformity to 
the dictates of others, regardless of my own feelings." Colonel 
Saltonstall resided on the beautiful family estate in Haverhill, 
known as " the Saltonstall place," where he lived in a style of 
liberal hospitality, sustaining the character of a truly upright and 
honorable man, and an accomplished gentleman ; he was never 
married. 

He was kindly received by his remote family connections in 
England ; and his fiiends erected a monument to his memory at 
Kensington, with the following inscription : 

" Near this place are interred the remains of Richard Salton- 
stall, Esq., who died October 1, 1785, aged fifty-two. He was 
an American loyalist, from Haverhill in the Massachusetts ; where 



550 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 

he was descended from a first family, both for the principal share 
it had in the early erecting, as well as in rank and authority in 
governing that province. And wherein he himself sustained, with 
unshaken loyalty and universal applause, various important trusts 
and commands under the crown, both civil and military, from his 
youth till its revolt ; and throughout life maintained such an amia- 
ble private character, as engaged him the esteem and regard of 
many friends. 

" As a memorial of his merits, this stone is erected." 
Col. Saltonstall was a descendant in the sixth generation from 
Sir Richard Saltonstall, one of the patentees of the colony of 
Massachusetts Bay, and who arrived at Salem, in the Arabella, 
(or Arbella,) June 12, 1630, with Governor Winthrop and their 
associates, " bringing out the charter with them." He was also 
a patentee of Connecticut, and may be considered as one of the 
principal founders of both colonies. A memoir of this family may 
be found in the publications of the Mass. Historical Society. 

Dr. Nathaniel Saltonstall, brother of Colonel Saltonstall, was a 
decided whig of the Revolution. The Hon. Leverett Saltonstall, 
of Salem, an able and eloquent representative, now in congress 
from Massachusetts, is his son. 

N. CHANDLER. 

Nathaniel Chandler, son of Col. John Chandler of Worcester, 
graduated at Harvard College, in 1768, was a practising attorney 
at Petersham, when the troubles commenced, and was compelled 
on account of his principles to take refuge in Boston. He was 
proscribed in 1778. Had for a while led a corps of volunteers in 
the British service at New-York. He afterwards went to Eng- 
land, returned, and died at Worcester, 1801, aged fifty-one. 

DR. B. S. OLIVER. 

Brinley Sylvester Oliver, M. D., fourth son of Lieut. Governor 
Andrew Oliver, graduated at Harvard College in 1774, studied 
medicine and surgery, and was afterwards a surgeon in the British 
service. 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 551 

DR. PAINE. 
William Paine, M. D., son of Timothy Paine, Esq., of Wor- 
cester, Mass., graduated at Harvard College in 1768. He was 
practising professionally at Worcester at the commencement of the 
Revolution ; was a refugee, and proscribed in 1778. Became an 
apothecary to the British forces in Rhode Island and New-York. 
At the peace he settled at New Brunswick, and was a represent- 
ative for Charlotte county. He removed to Salem, Mass., where 
he practised from 1787 to 1793, with success in his profession. The 
death of his father caused him to return to Worcester, where he 
closed his checkered life, on the 18th April, 1833, at the age of 
eighty-three. 

WM. CHANDLER. 

William Chandler, Esq., youngest son of Col. John Chandler, 
of Worcester, Mass., was compelled to take refuge in Boston, and 
was proscribed in 1778. He returned after peace was restored, 
and died in his native place, July, 1793, aged forty. Mr. Chandler 
graduated at Harvard College, in 1772. 

CHARLES CURTIS. 

Charles Curtis, of Scituate, Mass., graduated at Harvard Col- 
lege, 1765. Driven into Boston, he was proscribed in 1778, and 
died in New -York, previous to 1832. 

DR. P. OLIVER. 

Peter Oliver, Jr., second son of the chief justice of the same 
name, both of Middleborough, Plymouth county, Mass. ; the former 
graduated at Harvard College in 1761. He had practised in Scit- 
uate in early life ; was driven into Boston, and in consequence 
became a refugee in England, where he died, at Shrewsbury, in 
Sept. 1822, aged eighty-one. 

REV. M. BADGER. 
Rev. Moses Badger, of Haverhill, graduated at Harvard Col- 
lege, 1761 ; was a refugee, proscribed by the act of Sept. 1778. Af- 
ter the peace he returned, and was rector of King's Chapel, Provi- 
dence, Rhode Island, where he died, Sept. 19, 1792. 



552 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 

• J. D. ROGERS. 

Jeremiah Dummer Rogers, Esq., an attorney at law of Little- 
ton, graduated at Harvard College, 1762. He was a refugee, pro- 
scribed in 1778, and died at Halifax, 1784. 

T. A. COFFIN. 

Thomas Aston Coffin, Esq., son of William Coffin, of Boston, 
and cousin of Sir Isaac Coffin, remained in Boston after the siege, 
and was proscribed in 1778. He was private secretary to Gen. 
Carleton, and in 1784 was appointed commissary-general to the 
British troops at Quebec, He died in London, May 3d, 1810, 
aged fifty-six. Mr. Coffin graduated at Harvard College in 1772. 

REV. B. LOVELL. 
Rev. Benjamin Lovell, youngest son of the grammar school 
master at Boston, was graduated at Harvard College in 1774. He 
became a refugee, first to Halifax, where he married, and after- 
wards to England. Mr. Lovell took orders, and was settled at 
Ashe, Surrey, where he died, March 14, 1828, aged seventy-three. 

J. PUTNAM, Jr. 

James Putnam, Jr., Esq., son of Hon. James Putnam of Wor- 
cester, graduated at Harvard College in 1774 ; was a refugee in 
1775 J became barrack-master, and subsequently one of the house- 
hold of the late Duke of Kent ; of whose wnll he was executor. 
He died in London, March, 1838. 

GOV. FRANKLIN. 
Hon. William Franklin, born in 1731, a natural son of the 
celebrated Dr. Franklin, was the last of the royal governors of 
New Jersey, and one of the most conspicuous persons in opposition 
to the principles of the Revolution. Although born upon the 
American soil, he was from feeling and principle a loyalist ; and 
his firm adherence to government, under the most adverse circum- 
stances, and with all the influence of his father's example to con- 
tend against, as well as his disapprobation of the course he took, 
showed a self-sacrifice seldom equalled, and renders him well 
worthy of notice, while his sufferings entitle him to our sympathy. 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 553 

Of his early history very little is known ; he was a captain in 
the army during the French war, and served with credit at Ticon- 
deroga. He afterwards accompanied his father to England, where 
he appears to have been received with distinction. He was 
honored by the university of Cambridge with the degree of Master 
of Arts, and we find him enjoying the intimacy and confidence of 
the Earl of Bute, on whose recommendation Lord Halifax appointed 
him, in 1763, the governor of New-Jersey. 

Governor Franklin seems to have studied the best interests of 
his province, and for some time enjoyed considerable popularity, 
but he did not possess the good fortune to retain it. In the first 
dispute which occurred between hira and the assembly, in relation 
to the removal of a defaulting treasurer, he manifested a useless 
obstinacy, in opposition to their wishes, which served to deprive 
him of their confidence, and to prevent any influence which he 
might otherwise have exerted in opposition to the Revolution. He 
also gave offence by showing, in all contests between the mother 
country and her colonies, that he remained faithful to his principles ; 
for he steadily advocated the claims of government, and in answer 
to the strong remonstrances of the assembly he invariably aimed 
to show them that their situation was much to be preferred to the 
uncertain results of a revolution. At length the current of opinion 
became strong against him, and he found that his exertions served 
only to excite a more determined opposition. He labored assidu- 
ously to prevent the formation of an independent provincial govern- 
ment and the union of the colonies, and aflforded encouragement 
and protection to the most violent opponents of the Revolution. 
But what gave the greatest offence was his proclamation calling 
together the royal assembly, in order to oppose their action to that 
of the provincial congress. This measure alarmed the latter body, 
and they at once resolved that his proclamation ought not to be 
obeyed, that he had acted in violation of their resolves, and had 
proved himself an enemy to the liberties of his country ; that mea- 
sures should be taken to secure his person, and that all payments 
of salary to him should cease. He was then arrested by order of 
the convention, and on his refusal to sign a parole, detained in close 
custody. In the mean time an application had been made to the 
continental congress for advice as to the course to be pursued, 

70 



554 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 

suggesting that it would be more safe to confine him in some other 
state than New-Jersey ; and that body recommended that, after an 
examination, he should be transferred to the custody of the gover- 
nor of Connecticut, He was accordingly brought before the con- 
vention for examination, but his firmness did not desert him, and he 
steadily refused to answer any questions, denying the authority of 
that body, which he asserted had usurped the government. He 
was then sent to Connecticut, and after a confinement at Middle- 
town of nearly two years, was liberated in exchange for an Ameri- 
can general officer, when he retired to England, on a pension, 
which was continued during life. He died on the 17th November, 
1813, at the age of eighty-two. 

Gov. Franklin, though wanting the genius of his father, was a 
man of talents, firmness, and integrity. That his conduct was the 
result of sincere convictions cannot be doubted. He had been 
raised to his dignified station without any solicitation on his part, 
or on the part of his father, and it is probable that a feeling of gra- 
titude may have held him more steadily in his cotyse. It is evident 
that he sacrificed much in acting as he did, if it were only the 
friendly intercourse with his parent, who had previously bestowed 
upon him much of his confidence and affection. The letters be- 
tM'een them had been frequent, but when the course of the gover- 
nor became manifest, their intercourse entirely ceased. The last of 
the doctor's letters was in January, 1774, and he had no further 
communication with his son till after the peace, when the latter, in 
1784, wrote to his father, proposing a reconciliation. The doctor 
remarks in his answer, that nothing had ever caused him so much 
pain as " to find himself deserted, in his old age, by his only son :" 
he finds for him, however, an excuse in his situation, but remarks 
that " there are natural duties which precede political ones, and 
cannot be extinguished by them." The intercourse thus recom- 
menced continued, probably, till the death of the illustrious philoso- 
pher and statesman. 

Gov.' Franklin was twice married, and left, at his death, one 
son, William Temple Franklin, editor of the works of his grand- 
father, who died in Paris, May 25, 1823. 

Gov. Franklin caused a monumental tablet to be placed in the 
chancel of St. Paul's church, New- York, with the following inscrip- 
tion: 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 555 

" Beneath the altar of this church are deposited the remains of 
Mrs. Elizabeth Franklin, wife of his Excellency William Frankhn, 
late governor, under his Britannic Majesty, of the province of New- 
Jersey. Compelled to part from the husband she loved, and at 
length despairing of the soothing hope of his speedy return, she 
sunk under accumulated distresses, and departed this life 28th July, 
1778, in the forty-ninth year of her age. 

Sincerity and sensibility. 

Politeness and affability, 

Godliness and charity, 

were, with sense refined and person elegant, in her united. 

From a grateful remembrance of her affectionate tenderness and 

constant performance of all the duties of a good wife, 

this monument is erected, in the year 1787, 

by one who knows her worth, 

and still laments her loss." 

I. WILKINS, D. D. 

Isaac Wilkins, of Westchester, New-York, son of Martin 
Wilkins, Esq., who in infancy, at the decease of his father, an opu- 
lent planter, and an eminent man of the island of Jamaica, was 
brought to the province, and received the best education the coun- 
try afforded. The former married Isabella Morris, a sister of that 
eloquent patriot and statesman, Gouverneur Morris.* Mr. Wilkins 
first prepared himself for the church, but did not take orders. As a 
member of the provincial assembly, he was subsequently distin- 
guished for loyalist principles, and his eloquence and integrity ac- 
quired for him an influence rarely attained, and which for a consid- 
erable time prevented the prostration of the colonial government. 

The following extract from his speech on the resolutions for 
adopting the measures recommended by congress, shows the interest 
he felt in the subject : 

" We have before us the choice of peace or war, of happiness 
or misery, of freedom or slavery ; and can we hesitate which to 
choose ? By proceeding in a firm, but loyal and constitutional 

* Anolher brother, Sir Staats L. Morris, K. C. B., who entered the British 
army in early life, attained the rank of lieixt. general, and married the duch- 
ess of Gordon. 



556 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 

manner, in the settlement of this unhappy difference "with our 
mother country, we cannot fail, I am convinced, of meeting with 
success, of securing to ourselves a free constitution, and of a restor- 
ation to the favor and protection of the parent state, which, next to 
the favor of heaven, will be our best and strongest safeguard and 
security. This is the critical moment of our fate ; we have it now 
in our power to do the most essential good or mischief to ourselves 
and our posterity. If we neglect this opportunity of promoting 
our common felicity, and of establishing our liberties on a firm and 
lasting basis, we may perhaps never have another, and shall repent 
of our fatal infatuation and folly when too late to retrieve the mis- 
take; when the horrors of civil war shall be increased by the 
curses of our wretched and deluded constituents, who, in the bitter- 
ness of their hearts, shall point us out as the authors of their ruin, 
and when we shall be obliged to submit to the laws of conquest, 
or the penalties of rebellion. I have shown that the rise of this 
dispute with Great Britain has been an unreasonable jealousy on 
our part, originating from an impolitic exertion of authority on 
hers ; and that it is our interest, as well as duty, to cultivate the 
closest union with her. I have shown that by a peaceful conduct 
we may procure for ourselves, and perhaps for our sister colonies, 
a more perfect system of government than that we have hitherto 
enjoyed, which was indeed better calculated for our infant state 
than for the present period of our maturity ; a period that requires, 
however paradoxical it may seem, more liberty and a stricter gov- 
ernment. I will only add, that if contrary to my most ardent 
wishes, contrary to the dignity of this house, to the dictates of hu- 
manity, and our duty to our constituents and country, you adopt the 
measures of congress, and by that means involve our country in a 
civil war, that most dreadful of calamities, I declare my honest in- 
dignation against your course, and call heaven to witness I am 
guiltless of the blood of my fellow subjects that will be shed on the 
occasion — I am guiltless of the ruin of my country." 

About the 1st of May, 1775, Mr. Wilkins was compelled to 
abandon his family and country, and embarked for England, 
after taking the following leave of his countrymen, which appeared 
in Rivington's Gazette, of May 3, 1775 : 



biographical notices. 557 

*' My Countrymen : 

" Before I leave America, the land T love, and in which is con- 
tained every thing that is valuable and dear to me, my wife, chil- 
dren, friends, and property, permit me to make a short and faithful 
declaration, vi'hich I am induced to do, neither through fear, nor a 
consciousness of having acted wrong. An honest man and a Chris- 
tian hath nothing to apprehend from this world. God is my judge 
and witness, that all I have done, written, or said, in relation to the 
present unnatural dispute between Great Britain and her colonies, 
proceeded from the honest intention of serving my country. Her 
welfare and prosperity were the objects towards which aH my en- 
deavors have been directed. They still are the sacred objects which 
I shall ever steadily and invariably keep in view, and when in 
England, all the influence that so inconsiderable a man as I am can 
have, shall be exerted in her behalf. 

" It has been ray constant maxim through life to do ray duty 
conscientiously, and to trust the issue of my actions to the Al- 
mighty. May He, in whose hands are all events, speedily restore 
peace and liberty to my unhappy country ; may Great Britain and 
America be soon united in the bands of everlasting amity, and 
when united, may they continue a free, virtuous, and happy nation, 
to the end of time. 

" I leave America and every erldearing connection, because I 
will not raise my hand in opposition to my sovereign, nor will I 
draw my sword against my country ; when I can conscientiously 
draw it in her favor, ray life shall be cheerfully devoted to her 
service. " Isaac Wilkins." 

Bishop Seabury wrote Mr. Wilkins on the 30th of May, 1775, 
that Drs. Cooper and Chandler had sailed from New-York the pre- 
vious week for England. 

Mr. Samuel Bayard, jr., wrote Mr. Wilkins in London, dated 
New-York, 6th June, 1775, " that the few soldiers who were here 
embarked on board the Asia yesterday ; their baggage was stopped 
by some of our inhabitants, and one or two soldiers deserted. Stop- 
ping the baggage is said to have been contrary to the sentiments 
of most people here. We are, however, very quiet. The military 
made no resistance, as the oflicers were afraid of greater desertions 



558 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 

if the soldiers remained in the streets." On the 5th July he writes as 
follows : " Wooster's camp I suppose you know is within two miles 
of us — it is in a field adjoining the sand-hill, and on the left hand 
side of the new road which runs through N. Bayard's land, so that 
this road is on the east side, and the road over the sand-hill on the 
north side of the camp. The number is said to be fourteen hundred. 
These are a part of the five thousand which the continental con- 
gress have directed to be kept in this province. We have for ten 
days past received contradictory accounts of an action between 
Gen. Gage and the provincials, which happened on the 17th June. 
No account from Gen. Gage yet. Surely, if those who now direct 
affairs had a real love of the country at heart, they would use every 
means to obtain their desires before they involved us in the horrors 
of war. If influenced by laudable motives, their measures appear 
to be the effect of infatuation ; the uncertainty of what this may 
urge them to is such, that when I go to bed I know not whether I 
may not be waked by the noise of cannon battering the town, as 
there is the Asia of sixty guns lying just opposite my bed." 

On the 13th of July he further writes as follows : " Yesterday 
some of our Connecticut troops seized the cutter of the Asia, with 
eight or ten men, who came on shore to bring a sick man. They 
hauled the boat into the street, (the men belonging to her sitting 
in, huzzaing and calling them their horses ;) some time after they 
put the boat in the water and set fire to her. I hear Gen. Wooster 
has wrote a polite letter to Capt. Vandeput, assuring him that this 
outrage was without his knowledge, and contrary to his wishes. It 
is said the boat will be paid for." August 2, he also writes thus : 
" Although we are but looked upon as enemies to the liberty of 
our country, yet I can answer for you, as I believe you can for me, 
that we as sincerely wish her every blessing and the enjoyment of 
every liberty which the nature of civil government can admit, as 
the loudest of those who at this time are in opposition to govern- 
ment ; and I am convinced you will use all your influence and 
abilities to promote the good of your country ; which I hope our 
infatuated countrymen will one day be convinced of and acknow- 
ledge." 

Mr. Wilkins returned to Long Island in 1776, then under con- 
trol of the British, where he remained until the close of the war. 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 559 

While in England, Mr. Wilkins recommended to Lord North 
terms on which the breach could be healed, but they were not 
heeded. 

On the 4th of Feb., 1777, from Oxford, Dr. Cooper, form- 
erly president of King's College, New- York, wrote to Mr. Wil- 
kins, at Long Island, as follows: " I have heard of your sufferings 
with much pain, though I own without surprise ; you may remem- 
ber I tried to dissuade you from going so soon on that very account. 
But that * * * * * * should have been the very instrument of 
this wickedness, is far more than I could have supposed, and I 
heartily pray, (with a safe conscience, too,) that he may have an 
ample and speedy reward. The same good wishes attend all the 
laborers in the vineyard of Satan, wheresoever dispersed." 

At the close of the war, Mr. Wilkins was, by the terms 
of the banishment act, compelled to leave the republic, and 
he repaired to Shelburne, Nova Scotia, where he remained several 
years, and subsequently removed to Lunenburgh, in the same pro- 
vince. He obtained leave to return to his native land previous to 
1803, and having taken orders, was settled over the parish of 
West Chester, where he continued highly esteemed for lofty prin- 
ciple, ever exhibited through a protracted and checkered life, which 
closed soon after penning the following epitaph : 

To the memory of 
The Rev. ISAAC WILKINS, D. D. 

who for 31 years was the 

diligent and faithful minister of 

this parish, 

placed here, as he believed, by his Redeemer. 

He remained satisfied with the 

pittance allowed him, rejoicing that even in that 

he was no burden to his 

parishioners : 

nor ever wished nor ever went forth 

to seek a better living. 

Mr. Wilkins died 5th February, 1830, aged eighty-nine years. 



560 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 

EEV. IVORY HOVEY.* 

Rev. Ivory Hovey was born at Topsfield, near Salem, Mass., 
on the 3d of July, 0. S. 1714. He graduated at Harvard College 
in 1735, in the class of Mr. Curwen. He studied theology, and 
was settled at Matapoiset, a parish of Rochester, Massachusetts, in 
1740. He left that place in 1765, and was soon after resettled in 
a parish of Plymouth, where he passed the remainder of an unusu- 
ally long and useful life. He married in 1739, Olive, daughter of 
Capt. Samuel Jordan, of Biddeford, Maine, who survived him a 
few months. Mr. Hovey was able to continue his ministerial la- 
bors till a few days before his death, which took place on the 4th 
of November, 1803, in the ninetieth year of his age. It is remarked 
by Dr. Alden, (from whose Collection these particulars are obtained,) 
that for some time before his decease, Mr. Hovey " was but the 
third among the living of his alma mater." He probably outlived 
all of his classmates, although he survived Mr. Curwen by 
only eighteen months. 

For sixty-five years before his death, says Alden, Mr. Hovey 
kept a journal, in which those things designed for his own partic- 
ular use were penned in a short hand, as is said, of his own inven- 
tion. This journal, closely written, amounts to the astonishing 
number of seven thousand octavo pages. The same author pub- 
lishes an excellent letter of great length, addressed by Mr. Hovey 
to a young candidate for the ministry, written twelve days only 
before his death. 

* See above, page 418, where it is mentioned as uncertain whether this 
classmate of Mr. Curwen was living in 1795. The present notice of Mr. 
Hovey has been prepared since that part of the work was printed. 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 561 

SAMUEL QUINCY. 

[The following additional particulars and documents relating 
to this unfortunate gentleman are derived from original papers, 
of which copies have been made and forwarded to us since the 
preceding notice of him was in type. Aside from the fact that 
they have been communicated by a lady, (Miss Eliza S. Quincy, jr., 
of Cambridge, Massachusetts,) these documents possess too deep 
an interest to be withheld from the public, although their publica- 
tion renders the article more voluminous than is strictly consistent 
with the plan of this work.] 

Mr. Quincy was born in that part of Braintree now Quincy, 
Massachusetts, April 13, 1735. He was the second son of Josiah 
Quincy, who at that time resided on the estate of his ancestor in 
that town, and who afterwards removed to Boston, and became an 
eminent merchant of that place. His mother's name was Hannah 
Sturgis, daughter of John Sturgis, Esq. of Yarmouth, Massachusetts. 
She died in Boston, August, 1755, aged 43, leaving three sons and 
one daughter. She was an excellent and religious woman, and had 
received the best education the country at that time afforded. Her 
children honored her memory, and the eminence and usefulness of 
their lives and characters bore testimony to the virtuous principles 
she had early instilled. 

Endowed with fine talents, Mr. Quincy became eminent in the 
profession of the law, and succeeded Jonathan Sewall as solicitor- 
general of Massachusetts. He was also distinguished for his know- 
ledge and attainments in general literature, and as the author of 
numerous fugitive essays in prose and verse, that appeared in the 
journals of the day. He was the intimate friend of many of the 
most distinguished men of that period, and an early correspond- 
ent of John Adams. 

In early life he appears to have coincided in his political 
course and opinions with his brothers. During the movements 
preceding the Revolution, his name appears on the records of the 
town of Boston, associated with that of Josiah Quincy, jr. From 
the letter written by him to his brother, so ardent a patriot, on 
receiving a copy of his " Observations on the Boston Port Bill," 

71 



562 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 

it appears that their afFection for each other remained unal- 
tered.* 

The feelings of his father and family, who were all devoted to 
the cause of freedom and independence, were undoubtedly deeply 
wounded by the course Samuel Quincy pursued, as a letter of his 
sister, Mrs. Lincoln, evinces. But they always continued to take 
an affectionate interest in his fate and fortunes ', and the want of 
letters from his father and friends, to which he alludes in his 
letters from London, undoubtedly arose from the difficulties of 
transmitting letters to London at that troubled period. His father 
was then advanced in life, and lived in retirement at Braintree on 
his paternal estate. 

The following impassioned letter was written to Mr. Quincy by 
his sister, Mrs. Lincoln, when on the eve of his departure for Eng- 
land : 

TO SAxMUEL QUINCY. 

Braintree, May 11, 1775. 
My dear Brother : 

I write this in hopes to put it into the letter my father has just 
written. If it should reach you, it may serve to convince you that 
I have not forgotten that you are my only brother. He must judge 
what I feel, when I tell him that I fear I shall never see him again. 

Our two departed brothers died upon the seas. You perhaps 
will say your body is sound ; it may be so, but the sick in mind 
call for more than Esculapian aid. 

If any thing could surprise me now, the hearing of your going 
home would ; but of late every thing that is marvellous and strange 
is to be expected. I have not time to enlarge upon the compli- 
cated distresses of our country, of famihes, or of individuals, but 
shall briefly say that our connections have experienced such a se- 
ries of melancholy events as are not to be paralleled. We, my 
brother, I hope, can sympathize in sorrowing for the loss of a bro- 
ther, whose character was, as far as any man's of his age ever was, 
unimpeachable. 

In his labors for the salvation of his country, he was indefati- 

* See Memoir of J. Quincy, jr., by his son President Quincy, p. 160. 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 563 

gable. His death, I hope, will prove a warning to others — not to 
pursue too eagerly any point. Nature kept upon the stretch will 
give way. He did not sufficiently consider the tenderness of his 
frame, and it may truly be said Jie fell a martyr in the cause of 
liberty. ' 

In the monody on our eldest brother I find the following lines j 
they may with equal propriety be applied to the younger : 

" That heart which late,, inflamed with patriot zeal, 
Braved the bold insults of its country's foe, 
No more its pious frenzy can reveal, 
Nor e'er in Freedom's cause again shall glow." 

Let it not be told in America, and let it not be published in 
Great Britain, that a brother of such brothers fled from his coun- 
try — the wife of his youth — the children of his affection — and from 
his aged sire, already bowed down with the loss of two sons, and 
by that of many more dear, though not so near connections, to se- 
cure himself from the reproaches of his injured countrymen, and to 
cover such a retreat, obliged to enlist as a sycophant under an ob- 
noxious Hutchinson, who is a tool under a cruel North, and by 
them to be veered about, and at last to be blown aside with a cool 
" to-morrow, sir." 

"Refusal, canst thou wear a smoother form ?"^ 

My blood chills at the thought of the meanness of a seeker^ 
and flames with indignation at such treatment from those in power. 
Arouse from your lethargy — let reason take the helm — disregard 
all greatness but greatness of soul ; — then the little trappings that 
royalty can confer will lose their lustre, that false lustre which I 
fear inclines you to the prerogative side. Spare me, and do not 
call what I have written impertinent, but ascribe it to the anxiety 
of a sister, really distressed for thee. I behold you leaving your 
country, " a land flowing with milk and honey," and in which, as 
yet, iniquity of all kinds is punished, and its religion as yet free 
from idolatry, (how long it will continue so God only knows — we 
have reason to fear a depredation on our religious system next,) 
for a country where evil works are committed with impunity. Cau 



564 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 

you expect there to walk uprightly 1 Can you take fire into your 
bosom and not be burned ? 

I take a long farewell, and wish you success in every laudable 

undertaking. 

Your affectionate sister, 

H. Lincoln. 

TO HENRY HILL, ESQ., CAMBRIDGE. 

Boston, May 13, 1775. 
Dear Brother : 

There never was a time when sincerity and affectionate unity 
of heart could be more necessary than at present. But in the midst 
of the confusions that darken our native land, we may still, by a 
rectitude of conduct, entertain a rational hope that the Almighty 
Governor of the universe will in his own time remember mercy. 

I am going, my dear friend, to quit the habitation where I have 
been so long encircled with the dearest connections. 

I am going to hazard the unstable element, and for a while to 
change the scene — whether it will be prosperous or adverse, is not 
for me to determine. I pray God to sustain my integrity, and pre- 
serve me from temptation. 

My political character with you may be suspicious ; but be as- 
sured, if I cannot serve my country, which I shall endeavor to the 
utmost of my power, I will never betray it. 

The unhappy event which took place yesterday, was as unex- 
pected as it was distressful ; my concern for your safety, as well as 
my anxiety for the agitation of my dear partner, wounded me to the 
heart. Oh, cruel separation. 1 had many thinos to say ; I could 
have talked with you for ever ; but the will of Heaven forbade it. 
The kind care of my family you have so generously offered, 
penetrates me with the deepest gratitude. If it should not be in 
my power to reward you, you will have that recompense greater 
than I can give you, the approbation of your own heart. Would 
to God we may again enjoy that harmonious intercourse I have 
been favored with since my union with your family. I will not 
despair of this great blessing in some future and not very distant 
period. * * God preserve you in health and every earthly enjoy- 
ment, until you again receive the salutation of 

Your friend and brother, Samuel Quincy. 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 565 



EXTRACTS FROM MR. QUINCY'S LETTERS, 

London, July 25, 1775. 
* * I have now been here a month. I have not yet seen 
Lord North or Lord Dartmouth, not because I could not, but be- 
cause I have not been sent for, and choose my own time if I do it at 
all. I mention this to show you how mistaken you are when you 
suppose I shall be strictly examined. I have just returned from a 
visit to one of the first law officers, by whom I was very politely 
received. As to politics I say nothing ; suffice it that my opinion 
of men and things remains the same, and is confirmed every hour. 
* * We have just received the news of the battle of the 17th of 
June, by the Cerberus ; but this is a subject on which I dare not 
venture. Every thing is peace here ; I wish it may soon return to 
my dear, dear country. 

TO HENRY HILL, ESQ. 

London, August 18, 1775. 
You conjure me by the love of my country, to use my best 
endeavors to bring about a reconcihation, suggesting that the 
Americans are still as determined as ever to die free, rather than 
live slaves ; I have no reason to doubt the zeal of my felk)w- 
countrymen in the cause of freedom, and their firmness in its de- 
fence, and were it in my power, my faithful endeavors should not 
be wanting (nay, I have a right to say they are not) to effect an 
accommodation. But, my good friend, I am unhappy to find that 
the opinion I formed in America, and which in a great measure 
governed my conduct, was but too justly founded. Every propo- 
sal of those who are friendly to the colonies, to alter the measures 
of government and redress the grievances of which they complain, 
is spurned at, unless attended with previous concessions on their 
part. This there is less reason every day to expect, and thus the 
prospect of an accommodation is thrown at a distance ; nor is there 
yet the least reason to suppose that a formidable if any opposition 
will be framed against administration in favor of America. The 
people of this country are united in their attachment to the reigning 



566 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 

prince and his family. The king's ministers are their own ; and 
though a clamor against those who are in power, which is ever the 
case in popular governments, in some measure divides the metrop- 
olis, the city politics never were on a lower ebb. Their petitions 
and remonstrances are received with indignation, as they are con- 
ceived to originate from an anti-ininisterial spirit, and not as the 
offspring of true patriotism or friendship to America. The politi- 
cal subordination of the colonies is in this island a sacred tenet. It 
is not, therefore, very surprising, that the late alarming strides of 
colony opposition have taught them to suspect a determination to 
emancipate the continent from every civil connection with this 
country, and a dangerous design of independency, notwithstanding 
the denial of it in words. Under this apprehension, the yeomen, 
merchants, and manufacturers, in the inland parts of the country, 
who were wont to be advocates for America, as far as I am able 
to form a judgment both from information and observation, are be- 
ginning to murmur against them. Their common answer is, 
"Whilst you were reasonable in your demands and complained of 
real burdens, we were willing to support you, but we cannot ven- 
ture to assist American independence, lest we lay a foundation for 
the destruction of both countries. Their produce and manufac- 
tures are in quick demand, and likely to continue so, owing princi- 
pally to the equipment of the Spanish flota, and the late Russian 
waft They are therefore at peace and contented, immersed in 
wealth and commerce, and caring little what passes beyond them. 
Some of the principal American merchants here with whom I have 
conversed, are projecting an association promising their aid to gov- 
ernment, and publicly to convince America that they are not to 
expect the assistance of the trade here in support of what they call 
her extravagant claims. We look, say they, upon your attempts 
to distress us by stopping your commerce, as a mark of your want 
of honesty, and your pretended flame for liberty as only a desire for 
domination and empire. When the lord mayor carried up to St. 
James's the late city remonstrance and petition for the removal of 
the troops from Boston, his procession, with the usual parade, at- 
tended by the sheriffs, aldermen and common-council, excited little 
attention, and was honored at the palace gate with but a dumb 
peal even from the tattered rabble. 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 567 

The effect of the battle of Bunker Hill is a resolution to send 
more ships and troops, every species of ammunition and warlike 
implements, and all kinds of supply for the support of Boston ; 
many of them are already embarked. Admiral Shuldam supersedes 
Admiral Graves, and Sir Jeffery Amherst, it is said, has consented 
to accept the command, and General Gage will have leave to re- 
turn. What number of troops will be sent I am not able to say, but 
I understand much greater in the spring, if a negotiation does not 
take place. I mention these things minutely, to show you of how 
small importance are those flattering articles of intelligence which 
sound well upon paper, and appear highly spirited and influential. 
These are facts, not of conjecture only, but visible and operative. 
Your reflection will perhaps be, we must then work out our own sal- 
vation by the strength of our own arm, trusting in the Lord. Really, 
my friend, if the colonies, according to their late declaration, have 
made a resistance by force their choice, the contest is in short re- 
duced to that narrow compass. I view the dangerous and doubtful 
struggle with fear and trembling ; I lament it with the most cor- 
dial aflfection for my native country, and feel sensibly for my friends. 
But I am aware it is my duty patiently to submit the event as it 
may be governed by the all-wise counsels of that Being ' who ruleth 
in the heavens, and is the God of armies. ' 

TO MRS. QUINCY. 

London, Jan. 1, 1777. 
* * The continuance of our unhappy separation has something 
in it so unexpected, so unprecedented, so complicated with evil and 
misfortune, it has become almost too burdensome for my spirits, nor 
have I words that can reach its description. There are passing be- 
fore me a thousand varying objects, some of them affording amuse- 
ment, and others admiration. I see many faces I have been used 
to. America seems to be transplanted to London. St. James's 
Park wears an appearance not unlike the Exchange in Boston. 
* * I long much to see my father. It is now more than eighteen 
months since I parted with him in a manner I regret. Neither of 
you say any thing of the family at Braintree. They ought not to 
think me regardless of them though I am silent ; for, however 



568 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 

lightly they may look upon me, I yet remember them with pleas- 
ure. * * * Mr. David Greene is gone to Antigua. Mr. Ber- 
gwin, of North Carolina, is now with me. * * 

London, March 12, 1777. 

You inquire whether I cannot bear contempt and reproach, 
rather than remain any longer separated from my family 1 As I 
always wished, and I think always endeavored, not to deserve the 
one, so will I ever be careful to avoid the other. You urge as an 
inducement to my return, that my countrymen will not deprive me 
of life. 1 have never once harbored such an idea. Sure I am I 
have never merited from them such a punishment. Difference of 
opinion I have never known to be a capital offence, and were the 
truth and motives of my conduct justly scrutinized,! am persuaded 
they would not regard me as an enemy plotting their ruin. That 
I might yet be able to recover in some respects the esteem of my 
friends, I will not doubt while I am conscious of the purity of my 
intentions. When I determined on a voyage to England, I resolved 
upon deliberation, and I still think, with judgment. I did not, in- 
deed, expect so hurried a succession of events, though you must 
remember, I long had them in contemplation. Had an accommo- 
dation taken place, my tour would have been greatly advantageous, 
especially on the score of business ', what it will be now, time must 
tell. 

I am sorry you say nothing of my father, or the family at 
Braintree ; I have not received a line nor heard from them since I 
left America. * * God bless you all ; live happy, and think I am 
as much so as my long absence from you will permit. 

March 20, 1777. 
I am not surprised much that, to the loss of property, I have 
already sustained, I am to suffer further depredations, and that 
those to whom I am under contract should avail themselves of this 
opportunity and endeavor to make what is left their own. All I 
ask is that my brother and my other friends (if I have any) would 
think of me as they ought, and to be assured, that as far as they inter- 
pose their assistance to save me from suffering, they will not here- 
after find me deficient in return. 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 569 

October 15, 1777. 
If things should not wear a more promising aspect at the open- 
ing of the next year, by all means summon resolution to cross the 
ocean. But if there is an appearance of accommodating this truly 
unnatural contest, it would be advisable for you to bear farther 
promise ; as I mean to return to my native country whenever I 
may be permitted, and there is a chance for my procuring a live- 
lihood. But I do not say that I will not accept of an opening here, 
if any one should offer that I may think eligible. 

London, April 18, 1778. 

The late unexpected change of the state of public affairs in 
this kingdom has occasioned a variety of speculation among men 
of moderate principles in both parties. While some construe the 
concessions of parliament as the effect of fear and pusillanimity, 
others regard them as the offspring of humanity, a desire to put an 
end to war and the fruitless effusion of kindred blood. The pros- 
pect of a foreign rupture has doubtless its weight ; but a wish to 
restore the confidence of America by generous overtures, and its 
dependence by a mild administration of government, I beheve is 
really a principal foundation of the present terms. Would to God 
they may be such as will meet the voice and wish of the colonies, 
and the result be a reunion of two countries whose interests, in my 
opinion, can never be divided. I have hved to see the beginning, 
and thus far the progress of this cruel convulsion ; my prayer is 
that I may live to see the end of it. It has produced effects won- 
derful and illustrious ; in some of which we may discern and ad- 
mire the great hand of Providence, in others the havoc of corrupt 
passions and ambition. Devastation and death are inseparable 
attendants in the train of war. I regret my once happy country 
has, in so short a time, experienced so large a share of them. They 
are events I have long ago trembled at as a picture of imagination 
only ; my heart is, however, now disburdened in some degree by 
a prospect that the wrath of man will no longer prevail to the de- 
struction of life and property. 

By the favor of Lord Willoughby (of Parham) with whom, by 
the kindness of my friiend Mr. Fraser, I have the honor of an inti- 
mate acquaintance, my curiosity has been several times gratified 



570 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 

by an access to the house of lords, during the most important in- 
quiries ; particularly about ten days since, when the great Lord 
Chatham came down to the house tottering upon his feeble limbs, 
to give his voice and advice on the present critical and dangerous 
exigence of the state. The business of the day being introduced 
by the Duke of Richmond, Lord Chatham rose, and in a faltering 
tone of voice, manifestly enfeebled since I heard him before, began 
his remarks by recurring to former periods of national alarm, 
compared them to the evils now complained of, pointing out the 
causes and their remedy, and then delivered his opinion on the two 
great questions of a war with France, and the independence of 
America. His speech was short to what I expected, and I believe 
much shorter than he intended. The Duke of Richmond rose in 
reply, and with some asperity objected to Avhat had fallen from the 
noble earl. Whether this or mere bodily weakness was the cause 
I know not, but just as the duke had finished, his lordship suddenly 
fainted. The house was immediately ordered to be cleared, and 
the doors and windows set open ; but eager to see so celebrated a 
senator, as I thought in his last moments, I ventured to press 
in again, and saw him borne oif on the shoulders of the Duke of 
Cumberland and other noblemen of the first distinction, pale and 
speechless. 

" Silent that tongue, 
On which, enrapt, admiring senates hung." 

It was a grand though an affecting sight ! Supposing him to 
be near his exit, I almost wished to see him die within those walls, 
where for so many years he has figured to his own honor and the 
glory of his country. * * * 

If there is an accommodation, I shall certainly turn my views 
to some part of the continent, unless something very promising 
should offer elsewhere. It would grieve me very much to think of 
never again seeing my father ; God bless him, and many other 
worthy friends and relations in New England ; but a return to my 
native country I cannot be reconciled to until I am convinced that 
I am as well thought of as I know I deserve to be. I shall ever 
rejoice in its prosperity, but am too proud to live despised where 
I was once respected — an object of insult instead of the child of 
favor. * * 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 571 

You suggest, that had I remained, I might still have been with 
you in honor and employment. It may be so, but when I left 
America I had no expectation of being absent more than a few 
months, little thinking operations of such magnitude would have 
followed in so quick a succession; I left it from principle, and with 
a view of emolument. If I have been mistaken it is my misfortune, 
not my fault. My first letters from my friends congratulated me 
on being out of the way ; and I was pleased to find my under- 
taking met with their approbation as well as my own. The hearts 
of men were not within my reach, nor the fortuitous event of things 
within my control. " I am indeed a poor man ;" but even a poor 
man has resources of comfort that cannot be torn from him, nor 
are any so miserable as to be always under the influence of inau- 
spicious stars. I will therefore still endeavor to bear my calamities 
with firmness, and to feel for others. 

* * Those who have befriended my family are entitled to my 
warmest gratitude, and I hope you will never fail to express it for 
me. Whether it ever will be in my power to recompense them I 
know not, but no endeavor of mine shall be wanting to effect it. 
* * * I conjecture, though you do not mention from what quar- 
ter, you have received unkindness. There are in this world many 
things we are obliged and enabled to encounter, which at a dis- 
tance appear insupportable. You must have experienced this as 
well as I ; and it ought to teach us that best doctrine of philoso- 
phy and religion — resignation. Bear up, therefore, with fortitude, 
and wait patiently in expectation of a calmer and brighter day. 

London, May 31, 1778. 
By the public prints we are made acquainted with an act of 
the state of Massachusetts Bay, that precludes those among others 
from returning, who left it since the 19th of April, 1775, and 
"joined the enemy." You do not mention this act, nor have I any 
information by which I am to construe what is meant by " joining 
the enemy." The love of one's country, and solicitude for its wel- 
fare, are natural and laudable affections ; to lose its good opinion 
is at once unhappy, and attended with many ill consequences ; how 
much more unfortunate to be for ever excluded from it without of- 
fence ! It is said also that there is a resolve of congress, " that no 



575 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 

absentee shall be permitted to take up his residence in any other 
colony without having been first received and admitted as a citizen 
of his own." This may have some effect on a movement I had in 
contemplation of going southward, where I have a very advan- 
tageous offer of countenance and favor. 

London, March 15, 1779. 
" You may remember in some of my former letters I hinted 
my wish to establish a residence in some other part of the conti- 
nent, or in the West Indies, and particularly mentioned to you An- 
tigua — where my kinsman Mr. Wendell, my friend Mr. David 
Greene, Dr. Russell and his family, Mr. Lavicourt, Mr. Vassall, 
and others of my acquaintance, will give the island less of the ap- 
pearance of a strange place. By the passing of the act of proscrip- 
tion the door was shut against me in my own country, where I 
own it would have been my wish to have ended my days. This 
confirrried my resolution. I have since unremittedly pursued 
various objects, endeavoring to drive the nail that would go. 

My first intention was that of transplanting myself somewhere 
to the southward. On this subject I thought long, and consulted 
others. I considered climate, friends, business, prospects in every 
view, and at last formed my opinion. The provinces in the south 
part of America in point of health were not more favorable than 
the islands — in point of friends they might be preferable, but with 
respect to business or the means of acquiring it, uncertain ; public 
commotion yet continued, violent prejudices are not easily removed. 
I had neither property nor natural connections in either of them. 
I could have no official influence to sustain me. W^hat kind of 
government or laws would finally prevail it was difficult to tell. 
These and other reasons determined me against the attempt. But 
' to stay longer in England, absent from my friends and family, with 
a bare subsistence, inactive, without prospects, and useless to my- 
self and the world, was death to me ! What was the alternative 1 
As I saw no chance of procuring either appointment or employ 
here, the old object of the W^est Indies recurred, where in my 
younger days I wished to have remained ; and by the influence of 
some particular gentlemen I have at last obtained the place of 
" Comptroller of the Customs at the port of Parham in Antigua ;" 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 573 

for wliich island I mean to embark with the next convoy. My 
view is to join the profits of business in the line of my profession 
to the emoluments of office. This I flatter myself will afford me a 
handsome maintenance. I grow old too fast to think of waiting- 
longer for the moving of the waters, and have therefore cast my 
bread upon them, thus in hopes that at last, after many days, I may 
find it. 

Transmit to my father every expression of duty and affection. 
If he retains the same friendship and parental fqndness for me I 
have always experienced from him, he will patronize my children, 
and in doing this he will do it unto me. It was my intention to 
have written to him, but the subjects on which I want to treat are 
too personally interesting for the casualties of the present day. 
He may rest assured it is my greatest unhappiness to be thus denied 
the pleasing task of lightening his misfortunes and soothing the 
evening of his days. Whatever may be the future events of his 
life, I shall always retain for him the warmest fihal respect, and if 
it is my lot to survive him, shall ever think it a pleasure as well as 
my duty to promote to my utmost the welfare of his posterity. My 
mother will also accept of my duty and good wishes ; the prosper- 
ity of the whole household lies near my heart, and they will do 
me injustice if they think me otherwise than their affectionate 
friend. * * * 

Col. Scott yesterday received a letter from his wife, by the 
Marquis de la Fayette, by which I learn you were all well the 4th 
January last. * * 

With respect to my property in America, my wish and desire is, 
if I have any control over it, that my friends there collectively, 
or some one singly under your direction, would take it into their 
hands, and consolidating the debts I owe into one sum, apply it to 
their discharge. I can think of no better way than this. If 
eventually I am deprived of it, I will endeavor to bear it with that 
fortitude which becomes a Christian and philosopher. 

P. S. I could wish above all things to preserve my law books. 

TO HENRY HILL, ESQ. 

London, May 25, 1779. 
" * * I have obtained an appointment at Parham, in Antigua^ 



574 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 

as comptroller of the customs, and am to embark soon for St. Kitts. 
* * It is this day four years since I left Boston, and though I 
have been racked by my own misfortunes and my feelings for the 
distresses of my family and friends, I have still by a good Provi- 
dence been blessed with health and comforted by the kindness of 
many friends. If I have not been in affluence, I have been above 
want, and happy in the esteem of numbers in this kingdom to whom 
I was altogether a stranger. * * The education of my children 
is uppermost in my heart. The giving my son the benefit of classi- 
cal learning by a course of college studies, is a step I much approve. 
The sequestration of my books is more mortifying to me than any 
other stroke. If they are not yet out of your power save them for 
me at all events. 

TO THE REV. DR. WIGGLESWORTH, HOLLIS PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY, 

CAMBRIDGE. 

Jlntigua, June 28, 1782, 
* * Nothing has laid So near my heart during my absence 
and misfortunes as the advancement of the education of my chil- 
dren. The honor my son is about to receive at the approaching 
solemnities I hope will be well earned. * * * It was always my 
desire, and more than once have I intimated to you my inclination, 
to turn my thoughts and influence towards the prosperity of the 
college ; how that object has been defeated needs no explanation. 
I was ever their well wisher — they would have found me their 
benefactor. 

In a copy of a letter to a friend, apparently in the West Indies, 
but whose name does not appear, Mr. Quincy thus expresses 
himself : 

Antigua, Feb. 1, 1782. 
You ask of me an account of my coming to the West I ndies, 
the manner of my existence, and destination, &c. The story is 
long, and would require many anecdotes to give the true history, 
but you will excuse me if at present I say only, that in the year 
1775, just after the battle of Lexington, I quitted America for Lon- 
don on motives of business, intending to return in a few months ; 
but my absence was construed by our good patriots as the effect of 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 575 

my political principles, and improved first to my proscription, after- 
wards to the very flattering title of traitorous conspirator, and 
the confiscation of my estate. I remained in England several 
years, but, tired of waiting for the moving of the waters, and unwil- 
ling to waste the flower of my age in a state of indolence, neither 
profitable to myself nor my family, I resolved to seek my fortune in 
this part of the world, where I had been in my younger days, — 
obtained a berth in the customs, which, together with the emolu- 
ments of my profession, afford me a comfortable subsistence, and 
the prospect of something beyond. 

Your friend, &c., 

Samuel Quincy. 

to henry hill, esq., boston. 

St. Christopher, July 26, 1783. 
My DEAR Brother : 

I am sorry to find that the letters you wrote me after the tidings 
you received of my loss of your dear sister,* never reached me, as 
by that means I was deprived of the consolations, which the sym- 
pathy of our friends affords in the hour of grief. * * For strange 
as it may seem, however painful the idea that we are Jhr ever 
separated from our friends, there is something pleasing to me in 
calling to memory the conversations, the attitudes, which present 
them in the strongest point of view, the occasions upon which, and 
the places where they have most administered to our felicity and 
comfort. If this is not the case, how great a part of the small pit- 
tance of enjoyment allotted to us in this life is broken off". How 
many of our former friendships and sweetest intercourse would be 
for ever obliterated, and dead to recollection ; our fund of gratifi- 
cation would be confined to the narrow limits of the objects imme- 
diately around us. 

There is in some persons a strange kind of reluctance to 
conversing about their dead friends ; as if those passages in their 
character which render their memory dear, could not be thought 
upon without recalling the circumstances of their departure. 

To die is the lot of humanity ; if the sentiments and conduct 
of those who have been separated from us, are such as have 

* The wife of Mr. Quincy, who died Nov. 1782. 



576 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 

afForcled us either amusement or instruction, and their example wor- 
thy of imitation, the more we meditate or confer upon their native 
and ornamental graces, the more we pay them honor ; the more 
likely are we (at the same time that we receive a sensible grati- 
fication) to imbibe the amiable qualities in which they excelled, 
and to adopt their virtues. * * * * 

If the events of life were under our control, it is probable 
we should endeavor to govern them to the purpose of our views. 
In that case I should soon be in the society of my nearest friends ; 
it would be immaterial to me in what part of the world, for I have 
long since learned that happiness is not confined to any particular 
spot: diffused equally through the immense space of air and earth, 
the animal part of creation, whether rational or brute, possess it in 
every region; and most likely were we permitted to carve for 
ourselves, our fortunes would be still more chequered than they 
are. This reflection, at the same time it expands our idea of the 
Deity, has a tendency to teach us acquiescence in the state to 
which we are destined. Change seems to be as necessary to sus- 
tain the present link of being as air and food, for though the acci- 
dental ties of birth, kindred, and friendship, have a powerful 
influence on our affections, if the latter is met with where least 
expected, it has there its most peculiar energy, and the former 
gradually lessen as the probability of restoring them is removed in 
a greater or less degree. 

TO SAMUEL QUINCY, JR., CAMBRIDGE. 

June 10, 1785. ' 
How anxious soever I may feel to see my friends and rela- 
tions once more, I cannot think of doing it at the expense of my 
liberty ; nor will I ever visit that country where I first drew my 
breath, but upon such terms as I have always lived in it ; and 
such as I have still a right to claim from those who possess it, — 
the character of a gentleman. * * * The proposal Judge Sumner 
has hinted to me of keeping his old berth for you at Roxbury, is a 
good one, at least better than Boston. Cultivate his good opinion, 
and deserve his patronage ; he will bestow the latter for my sake, 
I trust, as well as his personal esteem for you. It will also stand 
you in stead at court, where I hope you will one day figure as a 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 577 

legislator as well as an advocate. All depends upon setting out)U^ j. £ 
right. You are at the edge of a precipice, or ought to consider I i ' 

yourself so; from whence, if you fall, the '^ revocare gradum," isSf Aa^ n 
a task indeed. Resolve, then, to think right, and act well; keep-M C^)\iM' 
ing up to that resolution will procure you daily the attention of alL 
ranks, and command for you their respect. Keep alive the cause 
of truth, of reason, of virtue, and of liberty, if I may be permitted 
to use that name, who have by some injuriously been thought in a 
conspiracy against it. This is the path of duty, and will be the 
source of blessing. 



<3 



^ 



J 4 






Jvly 24, 1789. 
I am exceedingly sorry to hear of the distracted political situa-^ 
tion of Massachusetts. * * * A constitution founded on mere 
republican principles has always appeared to me a many-headed | 
monster, and, however applauded by a Franklin, a Price, and a ' 
Priestley, that in the end it must become a suicide. Mankind do 
not in experience appear formed for that finer system, which, in 
theory, by the nice adjustment of its parts promises permanency 
and repose. The passions, prejudices, and interests of some will V .': 
always be in opposition to others, especially if they are in place. 1 ? 
This, it may be said, is the case in all governments, but I think ' '^ 
less so in a monarchy than under a republican code. The people ^^ 
at large feel an overbalance of power in their own favor ; they <J 
will naturally endeavor to ease themselves of all expenses which j 
are not lucrative to them, and retrench the gains of others, whether 
the reward of merit or genius, or the wages of a hireling. / 

Tortola, June 1, 1789. 
My dear Son : 

Your short letter of the 14th February gave me pleasure, as it 
informed me of your health and that of your family, and other 
friends in the neighborhood of Roxbury. * * * 

It would be my wish to make you a visit once more in my life, 
could it be ascertained I might walk free of insult, and unmolested 
in person. Two things must concur to satisfy me of this, — the 
repeal of the act passed 1779, against certain crown officers, as 
traitors, conspirators, &c, ; and accommodation with those who 

73 



578 BIOGRAPHICAI- NOTICES. 

have against me pecuniary demands. The first I have never yet 
learned to be repealed, either in whole or in part, and therefore I 
consider it as a stumbling-block at the threshold ; the second, no 
steps I suppose have been taken to effect, although I think it 
might be done by inquiry and proposition — with some by a total 
release from demand, and with others by a reasonable compromise. 
If you ever wish your father to repose under your roof, you will 
take some pains to examine the list, and make the trial. I shall 
shortly, I hope, be in a situation to leave this country, if I choose 
it ; but whether Europe, of the two objects I have in view, will 
take the preference, may depend on the answer I may receive from 
you, upon the hints I have now thrown out for your consideration 
and filial exertions. * * * 

I have been, as I informed you in my last, a good deal indis- 
posed for some time past. I find myself, however, better on the 
whole at present, though I feel the want of a bracing air. Adieu. 

Your affectionate parent, 

Samuel Quincy. 

Soon after the date of this last letter, Mr. Quincy embarked for 
England, accompanied by his wife.* The restoration of his health 
was the object of the voyage, but the effort was unsuccessful ; he 
died at sea, within sight of the English coast. His remains w^ere 
carried to England, and interred on Bristol hill. His widow imme- 
diately re-embarked for the West Indies, but her voyage was 
tempestuous. Grief for the loss of her husband, to whom she was 
strongly attached, and suffering from the storui her vessel encoun- 
tered, terminated her life on her homeward passage. 

* Mr. Quincy was married to a second wife at Antigua. 



LINES BY DR. COOPER, PRESIDENT OF KING'S, NOW 
COLUMBIA, COLLEGE. 

The following lines were written by Dr. Cooper, in England, 
on the 10th of May, 1776, the anniversary of his departure from 
New-York. As it is descriptive of his precipitate flight from the 
college, to avoid the outrages of a mob, this effusion may be 
regarded as a document of historical interest, aside from the 
beauty of the poetry. 



To thee, God ! by whom I live, 
The tribute of my soul I give. 

On this revolving day ; 
To thee, O God! my voice I raise, 
To thee address my grateful praise, 

And swell the duteous lay. 
Nor has this orb unceasing run 
Its annual circle, round the sun. 

Since when the heirs of strife, 
Led by the pale moon's midnight ray, 
And bent on mischief, urged their way 

To seize my guiltless life. 
At ease my weary limbs were laid. 
And slumbers sweet around me shed 

The blessings of repose : 

Unconscious of the dark design, 

I knew no base intent was mine. 

And therefore fear'd no foes. 



Nor yet content — but hoping still, 
Their impious purpose to fulfil. 

They force each yielding door ; 
And whilst their curses load my head, 
With piercing steel they probe the bed, 

And thirst for human gore. 
Meanwhile along the sounding shore. 
Where Hudson's waves incessant roar, 

I work my weary way ; 
And skirt the windings of the tide, 
My faithful pupil by my side, 

Nor wish the approach of day. 
At length ascending from the beach. 
With hopes reviv'd by morn, I reach 

The good Palemon'st cot ; 
Where free from terror and affright, 
I calmly wait the coming night. 

My every fear forgot. 



When straight a heaven-directed youth,* 'Twas then I scal'd the vessel's § side, 



Whom oft my lessons led to truth. 

And honor's sacred shrine, 
Advancing quick, before the rest. 
With trembling tongue my ear addrest, 

Yet sure in voice divine : 
'' Awake ! awake ! the storm is nigh — 
This instant rouse — this instant fly — 

The next may be too late : 
Four hundred men, a hostile band. 
Access importunate demand, 

And shake the groaning gate." 
I wake— I fly — whilst loud and near 
Dread execrations wound my ear. 

And sore my soul dismay ; 
One avenue alone remain'd, 
A speedy passage there 1 gain'd 

And wing'd my rapid way. 
That moment all the furious throng, 
An entrance forcing, pour'd along, 
And fill'd my peaceful cell ;f 



Where all the amities abide 

That mortal worth can boast ; 
Whence, with a longing, lingering view, 
1 bid my much-lov'd York adieu, 

And sought my native coast. 
Now all compos'd, from danger far, 
1 hear no more the din of war, 

Nor shudder at alarms ; 
But safely sink each night to rest, 
No malice rankling through my breast. 

In freedom's fostering arms. 
Though stripp'dof most the world admires, 
Yet torn by few untain'd desires, 

1 rest in calm content ; 
And humbly hope a gracious Lord 
Again those blessings will afford. 

Which once his bounty lent. 
Yet still for many a faithful friend, 
Shall day by day my vows ascend 

Thy dwelling, O my God ' 



Where harmless jest, and modest mirth. Who steady still in virtue's cause, 
And cheerful laughter oft had birth, Despising faction's mimic laws. 

And joy was wont to dwell. The paths of peace have trod. 

Not ev'n the Muses' hallow'd fane, Nor yet for friend alone— for all 

Their lawless fury can restrain, Too prone to heed sedition's call, 

Or check their headlong haste ; Hear me, indulgent Heaven ! 

They push them from their solemn seat, O! may they cast their arms away, 
Profane their long rever'd retreat. To Thee, and George, submission pay, 

And lay their Pindus waste. Repent and be forgiven ! 



* Mr. Nicholas Ojjden. 

I Mr. Stuyvesant's seat in the Bowery. 



t King's, now Columbia College. 

§ Kingiisher, sloop of war, bound to England. 



NEW-YORK CONFISCATION ACT. 
An Act for the Forfeiture and Sale of the estates of Persons who have 
adhered to the Enemies of this State, and for declaring the Sove- 
reignty of the People of this State in respect to all property within 
the same.— Passed, October 22, 1789. 

Therefore be it enacted by the People of the State of New- York, etc., 
That John Murray, Earl of Dunmore, formerly governor of the colony of 
New- York, William Tryon, Esq., late governor of the said colony, John 
Watts, Oliver De Lancey, Hugh Wallace, Henry White, John Harris 
Cruger, William Axtell, and Roger Morris, Esq., late members of the 
council of the said county ; George Duncan Ludlow and Thomas Jones, 
late justices of the supreme court of the said colony ; John Tabor Kempe, 
late attorney-general of the said colony ; William Bayard, Robert 
Bayard, and James De Lancey, now or late of the city of New- York, 
Esqs. ; David Matthews, late mayor of said city ; James Jauncey, George 
Folliot, Thomas White, William Mc Adam, Isaac Low, Miles Sherbrook, 
Alexander Wallace, and John Wetherhead, now or late of the said city, 
merchants; Charles Inglis, of the said city, clerk, and Margaret his wife ; 
Sir John Johnson, late of the county of Tryon, knight and baronet; Guy 
Johnson, Daniel Claus, and John Butler, now or late of the said county, 
Esq. ; and John Joost Herkemer, now or late of the said county, 
yeoman ; Frederick Philipse and James De Lancey, now or late of the 
county of Westchester, Esqs. ; Frederick Philipse, (son of Frederick,) 
now or late of the said county, gentleman; David Colden, Daniel Kis- 
sam the elder, and Gabriel Ludlow, now or late of Q,ueen's county, Esqs. ; 
Philip Skeene, now or late of the county of Charlotte, Esq., and Andrew 
P. Skeene, son of Philip Skeene, late of Charlotte county; Benjamin 
Seaman and Christopher Billop, now or late of the county of Richmond, 
Esqs. ; Beverly Robinson, Beverly Robinson the younger, and Mal- 
com Morrison, now or late of the county of Dutchess, Esqs. ; John Kane, 
now or late of the said county, gentleman ; Abraham C. Cuyler, now or 
laie of the county of Albany, Esq. ; Robert Leake, Edward Jessup, and 
Ebenezer Jessup, now or late of the said county, gentlemen; and Peter 
Du Bois and Thomas H. Barclay, now or late of the county of Ulster, 
Esqs. ; Susannah Robinson, wife to the said Beverly Robinson, and 
Mary Morris, wife to the said Roger Morris ; John Rapelje, of Kings 
county, Esq. ; George Morrison, Richard Floyd, and Parker Wickham, 
of Suffolk county, Esqs. ; Henry Lloyd the elder, late of the state of 
Massachusetts Bay, merchant ; and Sir Henry Clinton, knight, be and 
each of them are hereby severally declared to be, ipso facto, convicted 
and attainted of the offence aforesaid; and that all and singular the 
estate, both real and personal, held or claimed by them the said persons 
severally and respectively, whether in possession, reversion or remainder, 
within this state, on the day of the passing of this act, shall be, and here- 
by is declared to be forfeited to, and vested in the People of this State. 



THE PEPPERRELLS OF KITTERY 



As this was the only native New England family ennobled by the 
British government previous to the Revolution, and as the honor was 
conferred for distinguished public service, it would [seem that further 
notice than what has been taken in the introduction and in pp. 449 and 
526 is due, and will, no doubt, be acceptable to the reader. 

The fortune of General Pepperrell far exceeded any that had been 
amassed in New England, and his enterprise and public spirit shed a 
wide-spread influence around. He loaned a large sum for the furtherance 
of the expedition he was destined to command. And notwithstanding 
that Franklin and other prominent men of the middle and southern 
provinces pronounced the contemplated siege and attack of Louisburo- 
to be Gluixotic, so satisfied was Pepperrell of the feasibility of the plan, 
and that the reduction of that stronghold of the enemy was an object of 
vast importance, that he willingly hazarded fortune, fame, and life itself, 
for its accomplishment. 

His zeal in the business imparted new life to the people, and he finally 
succeeded in influencing the co-operation of all the New England gov- 
ernments. 

Fortune adhered to him in this as in all his commercial enterprises, 
and to the good judgment he displayed, as well as to his example of per- 
sonal bravery, is the final success of the expedition mainly to be attri- 
buted. 

By command of the king, (George II,) General Pepperrell repaired 
to England soon after the surrender of the French, and upon presenta- 
tion, after an expression of thanks by his majesty, for his public spirit, and 
brilliant achievement, he asked the General " liow he could satisfactorily 
reward him for his services ;'''' to which the General replied, '■'■Only by 
keeping a sufficient naval force on the banks of Newfoundland to protect 
the several thousand fishermen for whom I find employment there.'^ 
Struck by the seeming disinterestedness of the reply, his majesty caused 
to be made for and presented him with a superb snuflf-box, now owned 
by the editor, having upon the cover, in bas-relief, the very appropriate 
representation of the interview between Alexander and Diogenes. 

74 



582 THE PEPPERRELLS OF KITTERY. 

The city of London presented him with a long table of solid silver 
covered with an extensive service of plate. This was brought over to 
America under charge of Admiral Sir Peter Warren ; and when the 
seizures for confiscation of loyalist estates took place in the early part of 
the Revolution, this was exempted by the good people, and sent under 
charge of Sheriff Moulton of York, with a guard of armed men under a 
flag into Boston, for the grandson and heir, the last baronet of the name, 
who was a mandamus counsellor, and who had retreated to England a 
loyalist refugee. 

Andrew, only son of Lieut. General Sir William Pepperrell, Bart., 
was graduated with honors at Harvard College, in 1743. To personal 
beauty, in him were added grace of manner and elegant accomplishments 
rarely attained in our hemisphere at that period. He was for some time 
engaged to be married to a daughter of General Waldron, of Portsmouth, 
N. H. Sir William caused to be erected for him a splendid house, and 
had it furnished in the best style of that day. 

The day appointed for the nuptials at last arrived, and with it great 
numbers of guests from all parts of the country to participate in the joyous 
settlement in life of the son and heir of so prosperous a house. Prepara- 
tions in such style and magnitude had never been made in New Eng- 
land, and alas ! little did the family think that the wedding feast would 
prove a funeral repast. 

The company assembled to witness the marriage ceremony, when, 
strange to tell, the bride elect declined%iving her hand to her betrothed ; 
— she suddenly took the freak that she could not intrust her happiness to 
the keeping of her long-devoted lover. She soon after was united in 
wedlock to Secretary Flucker, of Massachusetts, afterwards a loyalist 
refugee, and their daughter was the lady of our distinguished General 
Henry Knox. 

The disappointment and chagrin of Mr. Pepperrell was only equalled 
by the regret and mortification of both families, and the end proved heart- 
rending to many. The disappointed lover repaired to his father's house 
in a state of mind bordering on distraction, and two days after, while walk- 
ing in the streets of Portsmouth, his career was arrested by a summons 
from the conqueror of all. He fell dead upon the spot at tlie age of 
twenty-five, and the next day his lifeless remains were attended to the 
tomb of his ancestors by the party which had assembled to congratulate 
him at his nuptials. 

Some author has stated that the fate of greatness is to weep unpitied, 
but the aphorism did not hold good in this instance, for Sir William had 
lived for others as well as himself; his wealth had scattered blessings on 
all around, and, by encouraging every laudable enterprise, he disarmed 
envy and secured universal confidence and respect. 

The afflicted mother, mourning her only and beloved son ; the fond 
sister, deprived of her accomplished brother, taken from them under such 



THE PEPPERRELLS OF KITTERY. 583 

awful circumstances ; and the bereaved father, shuddering at this first 
blow which his house had ever sustained, presented a picture truly ap- 
palling. The high hopes from the talents and character of his son, were 
blasted forever. Gaiety was banished from the mansion. The prop of 
life, the heir to his title and estate, had been removed just as he was 
prepared to enter upon the most important scenes of life. His pillar 
and support being gone, the old hero commenced preparation for the 
final event, which he felt might not be far distant. 

Sir William and Lady Pepperrell never after entered the house which 
had been prepared with so much care for their son ; and during the Re- 
volutionary war it was occupied as barrapks for the troops, and so sad 
was the effect of party rage, at that time, that the windows were demol- 
ished, the paper torn from the walls, the underpinning taken away, and in 
a few years the house itself was blown down, and not a vestige of the 
noble structure is now to be seen. 

After the death of her husband. Lady Pepperrell caused an elegant 
house to be erected near that of her daughter, and the village church, 
both of which still remain. Here she died on the 25th of November, 
1789. 

The old mansion which Sir William inherited from his parents is 
plain in its architecture and contains a great many rooms ; it was well 
adapted to the extensive domains and hospitalities of its former owners. 
The lawn in front descends to the sea, and the restless waves over v?hich 
Sir William successively sought fortune and fame, still glitter in tlie sun- 
beams, and dash around the disconsolate abode. The fires of ancient 
hospitality are extinguished, and the present inhabitants of the mansion 
(many families of poor fishermen) seem to wish to exclude all visitors 
and strangers. The hall is spacious and well finished ; the ceiling is 
ornamented, and the richly carved bannister bears traces of former ele- 
gance. On ascending the staircase, paintings of angels' heads decorate 
the hall window. All traces of comfort, however, seem annihilated. In a 
field near the old mansion is the Tomb, a melancholy memento of the frailty 
of human greatness. It is highly ornamented with the family arms, and 
an inscription records that it was erected in 1734, to the memory of the 
parents of the baronet, but there is no notice of the death of the victor of 
Louisburgh, which occurred July 5th, 1759. 

Elizabeth, only daughter of Sir William and Lady Pepperrell, was 
married to Hon. Nathaniel Sparhawk, a counsellor and judge. He was 
son of Rev. John Sparhawk, of Bristol, R. I., and brother of the pastor 
of the first church of Salem, Mass. Col. Sparhawk was a gentleman of 
dignified and elegant manners, of liberal education, and refined taste. 
The children of this connexion were as follows, viz. : 

1st. Nathaniel, who successively married his cousin Catharine, daugh- 
ter of the Rev. John Sparhawk, of Salem; Miss Bartlett, of Haverhill, 
and Miss Parker, o[ Portsmouth. 



584 THE PEPPERRELLS OF KITTERY. 

2d. William Pepperrell Sparhawk, who adopted the name of Pepper- 
rell, and succeeded to the title. He married Elizabeth, daughter of Col. 
Isaac Royall, of Medford, and died in England, a loyalist refugee, in 
1816, and the baronetcy became extinct, his only son having died in 1809. 

3d. Samuel Hirst Sparhawk, who was never married. For a notice 
of whom, see page 497. 

4th. Andrew Pepperrell Sparhawk, who dropped the Sparkawk from 
his name, while heir presumptive to the baronetcy, in accordance with the 
will of his grandfather. He married a Miss Turner, was a loyalist, and 
they both are recorded in the list of exiles who died in England, during 
the Revolution, from Massachusetts. 

5th. Mary Pepperrell Sparhawk married Dr. Jarvis, of Boston. 

A few years ago there was a noble avenue of trees of a quarter of a 
mile in length, leading to the house of Col. Sparhawk, at Kittery Point. 
The large hall of this mansion was hned with some fifty portraits of the 
Pepperrell and Sparhawk families, and ol" the friends and companions in 
arms of the hero of Louisburg — such as Admiral Sir Peter Warren, 
Commodore Spry, &c. Some of them were rescued from destruction by 
that indefatigable antiquary and elegant historical writer, the Rev. Dr. 
Burroughs, of Portsmouth, and now adorn the walls of the Athenseum 
here. 

Soon after the decease of his only son, Sir William sent for Mr. David 
Sewall, of York, afterwards United States District Judge of Maine, to 
write a will which would convey his worldly possessions to his posterity; 
and the desire he displayed to secure wealth to his grandchildren was 
expressed in every clause. The bulk of it was entailed upon many gene- 
rations, and the name of Pepperrell was an appendage which the heirs 
successively were obliged to assume. He thought it secure; but the 
best laid plans of mortals are often prostrated by that Being to whom the 
fall of a monarch is of no more importance than the beggar that asks 
alms at his gate. Judge Sewall lived to see his own prophetic fears ful- 
filled ; two great-grandchildren of Sir William would have been included 
among the town's poor, but for the interposition of Hon. William Jarvis 
and Daniel Humphreys, Esq.,* who spared them the degradation. 

Notwithstanding the entailment, this princely domain was confiscated 
because in possession of the last baronet of the name, who was a manda- 
mus counsellor, and of his brothers, also refugee loyalists of 1775. 

A copy of Lieut. Gen. Sir William Pepperrell's will is before us, and 
we make the following extracts : 

To Lady Mary Pepperrell, his wife, he bequeathed the income of hatf 
his real estate during life; four negroes; all the household furniture and 
stores of every kind, in house or warehouses ; chariot and chaise, and a 
choice of horses for the same, and £1000 sterling, in ready money. 

* District Attorney of New Hampshire, and brother of Gen. David Humphreys, 



THE PEPPER RELLS OF KITTERY. 585 

To Mrs. Elizabeth Sparhawk, his only child, the income of the other 
half of the real nstate ; all the houses and farms in the upper parish of 
York, called Scotland, and all the lands in Berwick. Also, £1000 ster- 
ling, ready money. 

To Nathaniel Sparhaiok, Jim., his grandson, lands and houses in the 
county of York, and £1000 sterling, on coming of age. 
*■ To Samuel Hirst Sparhawk, his grandson, house and land in Ports- 
mouth, N. H. ; a farm near the lower ferry of York ; a house and two 
acres at Kittery Point, and £1000 sterling on coming of age. 

To Andrew Pepperrell Sparhawk, his grandson, the house built for 
hie " dear deceased son Andrew Pepperrell, in said Kittery, and the fur- 
niture, land, &c. ;" also, land at Sturgeon Creek, and £1000 sterling, on 
coming of age. 

To Mary Pepperrell Sparhawk, his granddaughter, a house and land 
in Kittery, and all his lands in Boston, and in Rutland, Worcester county, 
Massachusetts. Also, his diamond ring, in his chest at Boston, and 
£1000 sterling, on coming of age. 

After legacies to the parish poor and church at Kittery, and for a 
school to be kept up there, and also legacies to some twenty relatives, to 
each of whom he also relinquished claims for debts they owed him, he 
designates his grandson, William Pepperrell Sparhawk, as residuary 
legatee for a vast estate, (comprising twenty miles in length, including 
the whole shore from Kittery to Saco,) on the following terms : £1000 ster- 
ling on coming of age, when he is to procure an act of Massachusetts 
to assume the name of Pepperrell ; all the service of plate, brought him by 
Sir Peter Warren ; his sword, gold watch, and pictures; all the real es- 
tate, except what is before bequeathed, lying in the towns of Kittery, Bid- 
deford, and Scarborough, in the county of York, and all his other real and 
personal estate whatsoever and wheresoever, during his natural life ; and 
if he should leave a son, then to him and his heirs from generation to gen- 
eration, in fee tail, so long as there shall be any of the name in his line. 
In case he failed of heirs, then to revert to the eldest son of his brother 
Andrew. 

On coming of age, the residuary legatee, in pursuance of the will of 
his grandfather, obtained from the Legislature of Massachusetts an act 
authorizing his assumption of the name of Pepperrell, when the honor of 
baronetcy was duly conferred. 

He could not realize the propriety of the political movements of his 
day, or that eventual success could repay the cost of the struggle ; he 
therefore, as a member, dissented from a majority of the Council of Mas- 
sachusetts, and retreated to England. For his loyalty he suffered, besides 
banishment, the forfeiture of a princely domain, which he held only in 
trust — it being entailed — and which the act of confiscation could not le- 
gally reach. 

He was exemplary in private life, contributed largely to the relief of 



586 THE PEPPERRELLS OF KITTERV. 

his captive countrymen, and faithfully served his fellow- sufferers in the 
cause of loyalty, as well in a pecuniary as in other points of view. He 
was amongst the leaders in that great work, the establishment of the 
British and Foreign Bible Society. 

The following letters from Sir William Pepperreli to his friend the late 
Isaac Winslow, Esq. of Boston, who had married Miss Sparhawk, of Sa- 
lem, a cousin of the baronet, fully evinces his charity for his political oppo- 
nents, notwithstanding the bitterness which marked iheir writings and 
conduct. And it is a remarkable feature in the letters of the loyalists 
throughout the revolution, that they exhibited an ardent love of country, 
and great liberality towards those who differed from them, notwithstand- 
ing their sufferings from proscription, confiscation, mobs, and finally ban- 
ishment. 

Extracts of Letters from Sir William Pepperreli, Bart, to Isaac Wins- 
low, Esq., in New- York. 

London, Nov. 21, 1780. 
My dear Friend — I had the pleasure of writing you by the October 
packet to inform you of my having obtained a grant for yoa from the 
Treasury of £100 per annum. I can say with great truth that the servi- 
ces which my situation in this country has enabled me to render my bro- 
ther loyalists, have been in the worst of times a source of real comfort to. 
me, and a very great alleviation of the weight of my own misfortunes. I 
trust I cannot in any one instance be charged with having neglected to. 
render these very worthy but unfortunate brother exiles every service iiit 
my power. I claim no merit from a most faithful discharge of this duty j 
I only mean to convince you that in this instance my duty and inclination, 
have gone hand in hand. 

December 6, 1780. 
I received your packet by Maj. Harnage. I gave Mr. Thompson,* 
Lord George Germaine's Secretary, your letter to his lordship. I liked 
the sentiments it contained very much, and I am sure they will be pleas- 
ing to his lordship. I had an interview with Lord North a few days ago, 
when I thanked him for your grant, as I have more than once done so to. 
my friend Lord G. Germaine, for his recommendation of you, and to my 
good friend Mr. Thompson for his kind assistance. 

August 19, 1781. 
"Besides, I was led to believe that my Surinam estate would yield this 
year clear three hundred and fifty hogsheads sugar;; and being made 
very comfortable the year before with three hundred, I thought myself 
happy in being allowed to expect so large an addition clear of all expenses^ 
But 'n'c/tes take unto themselves wings and fly away,'' for I cannot ex- 

* Afterwards the celebrated philosopher Count Rumford. 



THE PEPPERRELLS OF KITTERY. 587 

pect this year to get home any part of the produce. Mr. Hudson, of Am- 
sterdam, who has had the consignment of the sugars for these forty years, 
has already made a difficulty about crediting me any longer. And Mr. 
Lane has hinted, that as the remittances from Holland are stopped, I can 
no longer expect he will continue to advance. I am not, however, under 
any concern about my situation, for I think there will be a peace with 
Holland, and if things come to the worst, I can live decently in a retired 
situation for £500 sterling per annum, which I am allowed from govern- 
ment ; therefore be under no concern about me." 

/f 

October 2, 1781. 

I beg leave to return you my sincere thanks for the kind concern you 
show for my welfare in the advice you have given me, respecting the plan 
which has been so much talked of for a new government at the Eastward. 
I have never entertained an idea of coming out to it myself, or of accept- 
ing any other employment in America, if I could possibly avoid it; but 
in case of a happy reconciliation, and then if my friends wished it, I would 
certainly make an offer of my services. 

You will receive this by my worthy friend Col. Thompson,* who is 
going out to join his regiment of dragoons. I have recommended you to 
him as one of my best friends, and I am sure, from the friendship that has 
ever subsisted between us, he will be desirous of rendering you every 
service in his power, and I entreat you to mention your wishes to him 
without reserve. My friends in New- York cannot oblige me more than 
by showing particular attention to this great and worthy character. He 
has been uniformly the patron of our loyal American brethren ; and the 
services he has rendered them, and the ardent zeal he has constantly 
shown in their cause, as well as his amiable disposition and uncommon 
literary merit, give him every possible claim to their esteem and affec- 
tion. 

London, Dec. 2, 178L 
" I condole with you on the great national calamity that has befallen 
us in Virginia; it is great and distressing beyond measure; and when I 
think of the sacrifice made of our dear and worthy brethren in that coun- 
try by the tenth article of the capitulation, I am filled with horror ! I will 
say no more till I hear the particulars. I am quite in the dark respecting 
the measures government intend to pursue in America ; but it is general- 
ly supposed that we shall not extend our posts, but strengthen those we 
have, and confine our future operations chiefly to the sea. You will be- 
lieve me when I tell you that I heartily join you in your wishes for a 
peace ; but I cannot possibly see how that happy event can be brought 
about, till America becomes a little more reasonable ; for the constitutional 

* After^vards Count Rumford. 



588 THE PEPPERRELLS OF KITTERY. 

dependence of that country (for no other is talked of or wished for) seems 
to be so interwoven with the most essential rights and privileges of the 
mother country, that it is a question whether a ministry could be found 
in the kingdom that would dare give it up ; that would dare, I may say, 
to dissolve a tie on which our very existence as a free people must princi- 
pally depend. The nation, with all its weight of misfortunes, is not yet 
prepared for a measure so ruinous and disgraceful. It will suffer again 
and again before it will consent to its own annihilation." 

Sir William Pepperrell had become responsible for merchandise 
shipped at his own suggestion, for account of his friend Mr. Winslow, and 
which, owing to the adverse circumstances of the times, did not prove ad- 
vantageous to his friend. He thus alludes to it in a letter to Mr. Wins- 
low, 2d Jan. 1782: "I am sorry to find your goods were damaged, and 
more so that you have suffered yourself] at a time when you had so many 
other troubles to distress you, to be so anxious about them on my account. 
I do assure you I am under no concern about them myself, except that I 
feel a little mortified that my intentions respecting them will not be so 
fully answered as I could wish. Let the event be what it may, I beg 
leave to remind you of my being a volunteer in the matter, and that there 
is not any thing for which you can possibly blame yourself You never 
made any request to me upon the subject, but the goods were sent in 
compliance with my wishes." 

February 6, 1782. 
I take the liberty of sending to your care my late father-in-law's will,* 
which I beg you will forward by the first opportunity to Mr. Bowdoin, 
whom Col. Royall has left one of his executors. You may send it open 
or not with my letter as you think best. 

March 6, 1782. 
I know not what to say to you upon politics. Upon several questions 
respecting a peace with America which have been agitated of late in the 
House of Commons, you will see by the papers, that administration have 
been outvoted by the opposition, and left in the minority. Administration 
seem desirous of going any reasonable length for the purpose of obtain- 
ing a peace, but cannot see themselves clear in purchasing it at the enor- 
mous price of American independence. What will be the final determi- 
nation is yet a secret ; but I have been very long convinced that this 
country would be very happy to hearken to any reasonable terms of ac- 
commodation with America, but her sovereignty over the country she 
finds it hard to relinquish. Whether administration will be able to keep 
their ground is somewhat uncertain ; but as they are as desirous of peace 

* Isaac Royall, founder of the Professorship which bears his name. 



THE PEPPERRELLS OF KITTERY. 589 

as their opposers, and only differ aboxit the means that ought to be used for 
the accomphshment of so desirable an end, it appears rather probable at 
present that they will not resign. You will have heard before this reach- 
es you of the resignation of Lord George Germaine, who is created a peer 
with the title of Viscount Sackville, and of his being succeeded by Mr. 
Ellis, late Treasurer of the Navy, of whom, though his lordship has led 
me to entertain the most favorable sentiments, yet I cannot but think that 
the public, and particularly the American loyalists, have sustained a 
heavy loss by the resignation of Lord George. 

London, April 2, 1782. 
You will be surprised at the total change in administration, but will 
with me acquiesce in it, if productive of the desirable event for which we 
have both been so long wishing : and if a peace should also be settled 
with Holland, I am sure in a matter in which your friend is so nearly con- 
cerned, will be pleasing to one who wishes him so well. Many are san- 
guine in their expectations, that both these important objects will be ob- 
tained in consequence of the change ; should they be right I shall bless 
the day on which it took place. But my time will only admit of my tell- 
ing you thus abruptly, that in every change I shall be ever yours. 

P. S. This will be delivered to you by Brooke Watson, Esq.,* whom, 
I hope, through Col, Thompson, you will be acquainted with. 

* Sir Brooke Watson, afterwards Lord Mayor and Member of Parliament. His 
rescue from the jaws of a shark when a sea-boy, and bathing in the harbour of Ha- 
vanna, was the subject of one of Mr. Copley's best pictures. It seems the shark 
seized his leg, snapped it off, and was about to devour him, when a sailor struck the 
monster between the eyes with a heavy boat-hook, and saved his companion. The 
terror of the boy, the fury of the fish, and the resolution of the mariner are well rep- 
resented, while the agitated water in which the scene is laid seems bloody. This \J 
picture adorns the walls of Christ's Hospital, London. * 

A curious anecdote has been related of him while Commissary General, and v 

travelling in America. He, it seems, arrived at a country inn at a proper dinner il 

hour, very hungry. The inn-keeper, inattentive to his inquiry about dinner, looked 
earnestly at his wooden leg, when the following dialogue took place : 

Commissary. Why do you not reply to my inquiry ? 

Landlord. Why, Squire, I'm dreadful curious to know how you lost your leg. 

Commissary. If I tell you will you give me dinner at once ? 

Landlord. Oh ! yes, Squire, and such a one as you never eat. 

Commissary. Will you agree not to ask me any other question ? 

Landlord. Yes, Squire ; not another word will I ax you. 

Commissary. Well, then, it was bit off — now give me dinner at once. 

It seems the Commissary was sensitive on this point, and the pangs of hunger 
only could have induced him to talk about it. 



\i 



1 



590 THE PEPPERRELLS OF KITTERY. 

London, Aug. 7, 1782. 
" It would seem that government despairs of getting our American 
property restored to us at a peace, and are endeavoring to obviate every 
difficulty in the way of that desirable event. It is said here that Savan- 
nah and Charleston are to be evacuated, and the troops sent to the West 
Indies ; I think there can be no doubt but that New-York will be kept at 
least till a peace, which we do not seem to be nearer to than we were 
very long ago ; the language here is, that we cannot make a safe peace 
till we have reduced the marine of the house of Bourbon, and that we 
ought to bend our whole force to that object. America to be let alone by 
land, till she is disposed to accept of conditional independence, which even 
Lord Shelburne, I think, has consented in his public speeches to grant as 
soon as she is in a humor to negotiate. If Lord Howe, who I am told is 
soon to go to Gibraltar with forty sail of the line, can get a successful stroke 
at the combined fleets, our country may be put into that'disposition sooner 
than Congress may imagine. But till some, such happy blow can be 
struck, I am afraid we cannot expect to see our unhappy country, or I 
should rather have said the rulers of it, disposed to be more reasonable." 

London, Dec. 8, 1782. 

I take up my pen, though very much engaged and not in the best 
health, to say a word to you upon a subject of so much importance to all 
the King's American friends. My last letter will convince you that I was 
to the last unwilling to beheve that America would be ever uncondition- 
ally independent of this country. I would not, till I actually saw that un- 
happy event take place, believe that so great a calamity to both countries 
would be ever suffered to befall them. But seeing that it is done, I will 
not distress myself, nor you any longer, by dwelling upon the dark side of 
this extraordinary measure, but will seek for its bright side, and if I can 
find that it has one, will make that the subject of the rest of my letter. 

Let me then, in the first place, congratulate you upon the prospect of 
there being soon an end to the calamity of war ; I think that a cessation 
of hostilities will soon take place between Great Britain and the United 
States of America, and that it will soon be followed by a general peace. 
If the result should be the happiness of Great Britain and America, 
which 'tis beyond the limits of our understanding to say that it will not, 
our expected grief will be turned into joy ; and if Parliament should adopt 
and carry into execution his Majesty's gracious and benevolent wishes 
respecting us, (loyalists,) that also will be an occasion for joy. Is not 
this, my good friend, the improvement we ought to make of this unwished 
for event? I trust in God, that every man who has sacrificed his all in 
the cause of his King and country, will be sure to be protected and 
rewarded by the British government. I feel myself anxious for the whole 
body of American worthies, particularly for a number of gentlemen with 



THE PEPPERRELLSOFKITTERY. 59 1 

* 
whom I have for so long a time been connected by the closest ties of 
friendship. I need not add that I think often with anxiety what may be 
our future situation. To tell you I shall ever be a friend to you and your 
family is only to repeat. You must weigh the matter well in your own 
mind, and tell me to what point I am to direct my exertions for your in- 
terest. 

Shall you try to make your peace with our countrymen, or will you 
come over here, to your pension or an equivalent? or I trust something 
better, either here or in a new settlement talked much of just now in the 
eastern part of the province of Maine, I am persuaded you may rely on. 
Should there be a new government established, is there any thing in it 
you would like? I fancy I shall myself spend the remainder of my days 
in this country ; at least as my children are in the midst of their education. 
I think I shall not leave at present, but I have the strongest assurances 
that when matters shall be settled, my recommendation to appointment 
will be attended to, should there be a new establishment or any vacancies 
in the old ones. 

London, May 7, 1783. 
'' The last vessel from your side brought me your kind letter of 15th 
March. Since that time you must have heard of the peace, and of the 
independence of America. I wish either country may ever be so happy 
as it was when the two were connected, but I think it is more than can 
be well expected. I heartily wish both well, and hope in a commercial 
way they may yet be connected. Our unfortunate brethren, the loyalists, 
I am much concerned for, though I cannot entertain a doubt but if the 
recommendation of Congress to the different states should prove ineffec- 
tual, that Parliament will do something towards compensation. Ministry 
promise very fair, and I really believe (if our property is kept back from 
us by the states) they mean to do something handsome for us, though 
they talk of full compensation as impossible. An estimate of your losses 
I am expecting in answer to one of my last letters to you upon that sub- 
ject. I will do the best for you in my power, as I hope you are convinced 
I have ever done." 



592 CAPTAIN HARADEN OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



CAPTAIN HARADEN OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

Among the naval exploits of the Revolution few conld compare with 
those of Captain Jonathan Haraden of Salem, commander of the Picker- 
ing, of one hundred tons, armed with sixteen six pounders, and a crew of 
forty -five men and boys. 

Major Garden, in his Anecdotes of the Revolution, says that "while 
cruising near Sandy Hook, Captain Haraden fell in with a ship of four- 
teen guns, a brig of ten guns, and a sloop of eight guns, and after an action 
of an hour and ahalf captured the whole, and that during the same cruize 
he captured also the " Pomona," of twelve guns, the sloop of war " Hope," 
of fourteen guns, and the "Royal George," cutter, of fourteen guns." 

In the spring of 1780 he sailed in the Pickering from Salem for Bilboa, 
as a letter of marque, and laden with a cargo of sugar and molasses. 
When near the coast of Spain Captain Haraden fell in with and captured 
a privateer of twenty-two nine pounders, and sixty men, and put a prize 
crew on board under Jonathan Carnes as master, also of Salem, there- 
by reducing his crew to less than forty. He was still further weakened 
and embarrassed by having to take care of nearly twice that number 
of prisoners. About a week afterwards an English ship mounting 
forty-two guns, with one hundred and forty men, came up with and 
recaptured the prize. Notwithstanding the disparity of force, Captain 
Haraden gave her battle, and after a desperate contest compelled her to 
seek safety in flight, which her superior sailing enabled her to do, when 
he deliberately retook his prize and carried her safely into port. Mr. 
Robert Cowan, of Salem, one of the crew, says the " Pickering" looked 
like a long-boat by the side of the ship. An immense concourse assem- 
bled on the Spanish coast to witness the fight, and so great was the en- 
thusiasm and admiration with which the victory had been witnessed, that 
when he landed he was surrounded by a vast throng of strangers, and 
carried by thera in triumph to a,populous city in the neighborhood, where 
he was welcomed with public honors. Another person who was with 
him in battle, says that he fought with an energy and determination that 
seemed superhuman, and that although in the most exposed position, where 
the shot flew around him in thousands, he was all the while as calm and 
steady as amidst a shower of snow. Captain Haraden captured more 
than a thousand guns from the ships of the enemy. 

Captain Haraden was of middle size, but of symmetrical proportions — 
remarkable for personal beauty, as well as inflexible integrity. His 
temper was mild and manners gentle, but his firmness and energy were 
gloriously displayed in battle, and banished fear from the breasts of all 
under his command. At the close of the war. Captain Haraden suc- 
(cessfully embarked in commerce and the manufacture of cordage, and 



THE ROBINSONS OF NEW- YORK. 593 

lived to witness the nuptials of two of his three children, see pp. 491 and 
511 of this book. The youngest, Lucy, is unmarried. 

He died of protracted consumption in 1803, in his fifty-ninth year, and 
his fortitude and amiability were apparent to the last moment of his valu- 
able life. He was endeared by many virtues to an extensive circle of 
friends. ; 

The silver tankards and cans, with suitable emblems upon them, pre- 
sented by his fellow-townsmen soon after the close of 'his public life, are 
in the possession of his daughter, Mrs. Ropes. 



THE ROBINSONS OF NEW-YORK. 

Col. Beverley Robinson, of the then county of Dutchess, and state of 
New-York, was a prominent adherent to the crown from the commence- 
ment of the Revolution. He was, by birth, a Virginian, and the tenth 
eon of John Robinson, who, upon the abdication of Governor Gooch, be- 
came President of the Colony and Dominion of Virginia, as Senior Mem- 
ber of the Council, and died shortly after his elevation to that office. The 
subject of this memoir was a cotemporary and for many years a personal 
friend of Washington, until their intercourse was terminated by the Revolu- 
tion. In the language of Mr. Sparks, " their friendship was indeed severed 
only by the harsh and uncompromising decrees of war." He came to New- 
York about the year 1748, and soon after married Susannah Philipse, the 
daughter of Frederick Philipse, in whose family were concentrated the 
two large estates of the Philipses, situated upon the Hudson, the one called 
Philipsburgh, containing upwards of one hundred and fifty square miles, 
commencing at a place called the Yonkers, about eighteen miles above 
the city of New-York, and the other Fredericksburgh, containing two 
hundred and forty square miles, situated between Peekskill and Fishkill. 
Frederick Philipse left four children, two sons and two daughters. The 
lower manor, Philipsburgh, devolved upon his eldest son, Frederick, and 
the upper manor, Fredericksburgh, he devised to his three remaining 
children, Philip Philipse, Susannah Robinson, and Mary, the wife of Col. 
Roger Morris, in equal portions. It was at one time supposed that Miss 
Mary Philipse would have become the wife of Washington. Such, we are 
informed, is the family tradition, and among the papers of Washington 
was found a letter written by a Mr. Chew, from Mr. Robinson's house in 
New-York, advising him that if he had any serious intentions of making 
Miss Philipse his wife, to come on to New-York without delay, as Col. 
Morris, an officer in the army, was supposed to be a rival suitor ; but the 
advice it seems was disregarded. 

Early in the Revolution, Mr. Robinson received the command of a 
provincial regiment called the American Loyalists, a considerable portion 
of which he raised himself. His eldest son, Beverley Robinson, became 



594 THE ROBINSONS OF NEW-YORK. 

lieutenant colonel of the corps, and the late Col. Thomas Barclay, his 
hrother-in-law, the major, and the regiment was engaged in active ser- 
vice during the war. 

Colonel Rohinson avowed his opinions, and took a firm and decided 
stand in favor of the government as soon as hostilities were resorted to on 
the part of the colonists, and before any other constitutional government 
existed than that of the mother country. The acts which constituted his 
" treason," were committed or commenced before a government, to which 
" treason " could apply had been created. He maintained his allegiance 
to the government de facto and de jure, and obeyed the only laws that 
were then in force. No man was more sensible than he of the nature and 
extent of the grievances of which the American colonies had just right 
to complain, but he was of opinion that redress for these grievances might 
have been obtained without a resort to arms. He was among the first to 
clothe his family in the fabrics of the country, to demonstrate practically 
his opposition to the system of British taxation, and to employ other 
peaceful measures to accomplish the object that all had in view, and he 
had confidence in the efficacy of that course of policy. He shuddered at 
the idea of a resort to arms ; and such was unquestionably the feeling of 
a vast majority of the people, previous to the Declaration of Indepen- 
dence. Entertaining those opinions he acted upon them, and he took up 
arms in defence of the existing institutions, almost with as much repug- 
nance as he would have attempted their overthrow. This was the extent 
of his transgression, and for this he was attainted of high treason, ban- 
ished, and his estate confiscated. To render the act of confiscation effec- 
tual, his wife was included in the attainder. His eldest son, Lieut. Col. 
Robinson, Col. Roger Morris and his wife, and Frederick Philipse, Esq., 
were enibraced in the same statute. Mrs. Robinson and Mrs. Morris 
were, we believe, the only females, except Mrs. Inglis, who were attainted 
and banished during the Revolution. It so happened that the estate of 
Mrs. Morris was settled upon her and her children, at the time of her mar- 
riage, and consequently her life estate only was the subject of confisca- 
tion. The estate in remainder, which was secured to the children, was 
purchased many years before Mrs. Morris's death for a large sum of 
money by Mr. Astor, who, after a long controversy, finally compromised 
with the state for five hundred thousand dollars. 

At the termination of the war. Col. Robinson, at an advanced age, 
went with a part of his family, hie wife, three sons and two daughters, to 
England, where he afterwards obtained some compensation for his losses, 
and spent the brief remainder of his life in retirement. Morris, the eldest 
of the three who accompanied him, who had served during the latter part 
of the war as a captain in Simcoe's corps, the dueen's Rangers, advan- 
ced himself to the rank of lieutenant colonel, and died many years ago, at 
Gibraltar. Frederick Philipse, now Sir Frederick Robinson, K. C. B., 
and a general in the army, entered the service at a very early age, and 



THE ROBINSONS OF NEW-YORK. 595 

early in the Revolution. He afterwards served in several of the 
West India Islands, and subsequently had an opportunity of obtaining a 
high military reputation upon the Peninsula, where he was twice severely 
wounded, in the command ol a brigade. He received three medals, and 
was promoted to the rank of lieutenant general. He is now living in 
London, at an advanced age, and is the only survivor of that generation. 
Wilham Henry, afterwards Sir William Robinson, entered the Commis- 
sariat, and died at the head of that department, having also been knighted 
for his long and faithful services. These details are entered into, to show 
that the victims, politically speaking, of the revolutionary war, were not 
suffered to die neglected and in obscurity by the government which they 
had served, but that their services and sacrifices have been duly appre- 
ciated and rewarded. 

Lieut. Col. Robinson, at the conclusion of the war, found an asylum 
in the province of Nova Scotia, whither he and Major Barclay, with a 
detachment of their regiment repaired, to settle on the lands allotted to 
them by their government. Lieut. Col. Robinson graduated in King's, 
now Columbia College, in the city of New-York, and entered the office of 
James Duane as a student at law, but the revolutionary troubles com- 
menced before he was called to the bar. He had married the sister of 
Major Barclay, and daughter of the Rev. Henry Barclay, formerly rector 
Trinity Church, New-York, who died about the year 1760. The pio- 
neers landed at Annapolis, without means or prospects, late in the fall of 
1783, and remained with their families (each having several children) 
at a miserable inn, until two log huts were prepared for them in the wilds 
of Nova Scotia, distant some ten or fifteen miles from any human habita- 
tion, excepting similar huts that had been built by the soldiers. There 
they lived for several months, upon their rations and such game as the 
forests supplied.; jWithin a year or two, however, they were put upon 
half-pay, which afforded great relief to both. They nevertheless contin- 
ued to reside in those huts for four years, when Col. Robinson removed 
to the province of New Brunswick. He remained unemployed, except as 
a member of the King's Council in New Brunswick, until the French 
Revolution, when, at the commencement of hostilities between^England 
and France, two regiments were ordered to be raised in the two provin- 
ces. Col. Robinson was appointed to the command of the New Bruns- 
wick regiment, and Col. Barclay to that of Nova Scotia, and, as we are 
informed, without any application from either of them. The former 
accepted the appointment, and continued in the service until the regiment 
was disbanded, shortly before his death, which occurred in the city of 
New-York, his birth-place, in the year 1S16, while he was upon a visit to 
two of his sons, who had elected at an early age to make the home of 
their ancestors the theatre of their future exertions. 

John, another son of the senior Col. Robinson, who also entered the 
army during the revolutionary war, at the end of it took refuge in the 



596 THE BARCLAYS OF NEW -YORK 

province of New Brunswick, and embarked in commercial operations with 
considerable success. He filled several offices of trust and profit in New 
Brunswick, such as Paymaster General* of the Province, Mayor of the 
city of St. Johns for a number of years, and Provincial Treasurer, which 
situation he occupied at ihe period of his decease. 

Col. Barclay, whose fortunes appear to have been so closely connected 
with those of Col. Robinson in their early career, is the same who, for 
many years held the office of British Consul General for the Eastern 
states, and resided in the city of New-York. His very active and useful 
life will he the subject of a separate memoir. • 



THE BARCLAYS OF NEW-YORK, 

CoL. Thomas Barclay was born in the City and Province of New- 
York, on the twelfth day of October, 1753, the eldest son of the Rev. 
Henry Barclay, D. D., who, in the year 1748, succeeded the Rev. William 
Vesey as Rector of Trinity Church in the same city. Dr. Barclay had 
one other son, named Anthony, and two daughters Anne and Catha- 
rine ; the former married Colonel Beverley Robinson, the younger ; the 
latter. Colonel Stephen Delancey. These last were the parents of 
Ihat distinguished officer, Lieut. Col. Sir William Howe Delancey, C. B., 
who was killed at Waterloo, and whose appointment as Quarter Master 
General to the British army, before that great and decisive battle, was 
expressly required by the Duke of Wellington, when his Grace accepted 
the command. 

In the year 1764, when the subject of this memoir was but ten years 
of age, he had the misfortune to lose the fostering care and valued instruc- 
tions of the pious parent we have named; but not before his exalted pre- 
cepts and example had created an elevating influence in the mind of his 
son, which was to endure with his existence. 

Thomas Barclay delighted in literature from his youth. His family 
possess a large silver medal and several other prizes awarded him at 
King's, now Columbia College, in the City of New-York, where he took 
a degree of A. B. in due course. He studied the law as a profession un- 
der the late Chief Justice Jay, and was called to the Bar. On the second 
of October, 1775, he married the fourth daughter of the late Peter Delan- 
cey, of West Chester, in the then province of New- York, and grand- 
daughter of the former Gov. Cadwallader Colden, named Susan, after 
her aunt and godmother Susan Delancey, lady of Sir Peter Warren, 
K. B., and the mother of Charlotte, fourth Countess of Abingdon, and of 
the beautiful Lady Southampton. 

At the date last mentioned, resistance to the mother country was freely 
discussed and advocated throughout the provinces, which now form the 
United States. Mr. Barclay thought that the motives alleged were not 



THE BARCLAYS OF NEW-VORK. 597 

sufficient, nor, in his opinion, had the proper perseverance been employed 
to induce the government to modify its objectionable laws. As his loyalty 
never wavered, it became known the more as sentiments of a different 
character gained numbers and vigor. Accordingly, by an act of the 
Provincial Legislature o the State of New- York, passed in the year 
1779, Thomas Barclay was attainted as a traitor, for adlipring to gov- 
ernment. A singular cause for attainder! and his estate, which at this 
day would be a principality in income, was confiscated under the autho- 
rity of that law. 

On General Sir William Howe's arrival at New-York, with the army 
under his command, in the summer of 1776, Mr. Barclay joined the royal 
army. In February, 1777, was appointed a captain in a corps called 
the Loyal American Regiment. In consequence of his gallant conduct 
at the storming of the forts Montgomery and Clinton, on the banks of the 
Hudson river, in October, 1777, he was promoted to the majority of the 
same regiment. In 1780, Sir Henry Clinton, then commander-in-chief 
of His Majesty's forces in America, appointed him major to a corps of 
light infantry, with which he served in Virginia and Carolina. In the 
last named province he remained actively employed until the Marquis of 
Hastings, then Lord Rawdon, resigned the command in South Carolina 
in order to return to England ; at which time his lordship sent him charg- 
ed with his despatches to Earl Cornwall is, then in Virginia, who had 
promised toi^appoint Major Barclay one of his aides-de-camps. On his 
passage from Charleston, in South Carolina, to the Chesapeake, he was 
captured by the French fleet under Count de Grasse. Being soon after 
exchanged, he rejoined the Loyal American Regiment, and remained 
major of it until it was disbanded at the peace in 1783. In April, 1783, 
preceding the evacuation of New-York by the Briti.sh forces in Novemr 
ber following, Major Barclay was ordered by Lord Dorchester, then Sir 
Guy Carleton, commander-in-chief in America, to proceed to Nova Sco- 
tia, accompanied by two other officers, to locate the lands whereon the 
provincial forces who were to be disbanded, were to be placed. This 
service performed, he returned to New-York in August following with 
the intention of going with his family to England. At the earnest solicit- 
ation, however, of the commander-in-chief, he consented to return to No- 
va Scotia to superintend the settlement of the disbanded soldiers of his 
regiment, which duty he performed without any remuneration, and eventu- 
ally established himself in Nova Scotia, timong the troops whom he settled 
there, with a view to stimulate, encourage and protect them. When he re- 
moved with them he had four children. His ample property in the pro- 
vince of New- York having been confiscated, with doubtful prospect of the 
period when he might obtain compensation for his losses, or be placed on 
the half-pay list, he took a farm for himself in the wilderness of Wilmot, 
Nova Scotia, among his non-commissioned officers and privates, as did two 
or three other officers. With his own hands, and those of two sons, then 

75 



598 THE BARCLAYS OF NEW- YORK. 

boys, he levelled the forest on his new possession, which gratefully re- 
warded his toil and perseverance ; while he converted the settlement ot 
troops into a respectable society, to whom he soon became physician, 
pastor, counsellor and judge. 

By his industiy in farming, he supported a large family, until, finding 
his colony in a prosperous and orderly state, he removed to Annapolis! 
Royal, about the year 1789, to pursue his profession at the bar, which lie 
exercised with great success through the province of Nova Scotia. About 
that time he was elected member of the Provincial Assembly, of which he 
was chosen Speaker, and the last named office he exercised for several 
years, until other duties devolved upon him. 

At the commencement of the war between Great Britain and France, 
in 1792, he was appointed lieutenant colonel of the Royal Nova Scotia 
Regiment ; but as Sir John Wentworth, the Governor of Nova Scotia, 
was of opinion that Lieut. Col. Barclay's services would be more benefi- 
cial to the government by raising a corps of fencibles, in which he con- 
curred, he declined the appointment, and employed himself in raising a 
fencible corps of militia, of one thousand men ; it was principally com- 
manded by experienced officers then on half-pay, and was called the Nova 
Scotia Legion, consisting of eight companies of light infantry, a company 
of artilleiy, and a squadron of light cavalry. The activity, zeal, and 
.service of this corps, were frequently made known to the government, by 
General his late Royal Highness the Duke of Kent, then commanding 
the forces in Nova Scotia, and by Sir John Wentworth, Bart. 

In consequence of information received in the autumn of 1793, that a 
squadron of French ships of war, with land forces on board, said to be 
then in the port of New-York, meditated an attack upon Halifax in Nova 
Scotia, and there being in that province no other regular military force, 
than one company of the Royal Artillery, and the Fourth, or King's Own 
Regiment, at that time not more than four hundred men strong, and no 
naval force except a small frigate, it was resolved by the Governor in 
council to call in six thousand militia to the defence of Halifax. Of this 
num.ber the Nova Scotia Legion composed one-sixth part. Colonel Bar- 
clay, being then Adjutant General of the militia, performed not only the 
duty of that office, but important duties in other departments of the ser- 
vice ; and although the officers and men received the usual pay, he de- 
clined taking any, either as colonel of the Legion, or for his services in 
any of the other stations in which he acted ; and it is believed that the 
expense of raising the Legion was borne by himself. 

In 1796, Col. Barclay was appointed Commissioner to carry into effect 
the fifth article of the treaty of amity, commerce, and navigation, con- 
cluded between Great Britain and the United States, which article he 
brought to a successful termination in November, 1798. In January, 
1799, he received the appointment of Consul-General for the Eastern 
States of America ; which honorable office he filled to universal accept- 



THE BARCLAYS OF NEW- YORK. 599 

ance, until the commencement of the war between Great Britain and the 
United Slates, in 1812, when he returned to England. In the last named 
appointment he succeeded Sir John Temple, Bart, the first British Con- 
sul-General. At that time Col. Barclay's own personal influence at 
home had become considerable, in consequence of the just appreciation 
of his various services, by Sir Henry Clinton, Lord Rawdon, and other 
commanders, during the Revolution : the most flattering letters from whom 
and from his Royal Highness the Duke of Kent, father of the reigning 
queen, have been read by. the editor. By the influential patronage of 
the Duke of Kent, then commander-in-chief of the forces in North Ameri- 
ca, soon after the peace at the close of the year 1814, Col. Barclay was 
again appointed Commissioner to carry into effect the fourth and fifth ar- 
ticles of the Treaty of Ghent; the first of which was executed favorably 
to the interests of the Crown, in 1817. He was not so successful in bring- 
ing the fifth article to a decision, although he persevered long in his exer- 
tions to accomplish it. 

The fifth article embraced what has commonly been termed the 
Maine boundary line — that long vexed and lately settled question. In 
the year 1828, he retired from office at the age of seventy-five years, be- 
ing allowed to receive his full pay, as a pension. From the preceding 
dates it will appear that Col. Barclay was actively and constantly em- 
ployed in the public service, military and civil, from 1776 to the year 
1828, a term of fifty-two years ; or, in other words, from early manhood 
to old age. 

He obtained a commission in the army for his second son, De Lancey,* 

* In a recent work by Captain Jesse, the following lines, descriptive of this officer, 
taken from an extemporaneous effusion of the late distinguished Lord Erskine, at a 
dinner party at Oatlands, the country seat of his Royal Highness the Duke of York. 
on new-year's eve, of the year 1812, and the note subjoined thereto by Captain 
Jesse, may give some idea of the estimation in which he was held : 

" Halt ! blundering muse, to the riglit about face ; 
You have passed over Barclay, go back to his place. 
You sure must have seen him, so handsome, so tall : 
A straighter has never sprung up since the fall — 
Better fashioned without, or freer within 
From malignant ill-nature's original sin. 
Him famed in our armies one day we shall see, 
Though a Barclay, a Quaker he never will be." 

Jesse's note follows : 

" De Lancey Barclay, C. B , another aide-de-camp of the Duke of York's, and 
one of the most popular men in the army. He was at this time in the Royal Corsi- 
can Rangers. Colonel Barclay was in the Guards at Waterloo, and at the period 
of his death, which took place on the twenty-eighth of March, 1826, he was one of 
the aides-de-camp of King George the Fourth." 



600 THE BARCLAYS OF NEW- YORK. 

who was rapidly promoted to the highest rank which his lengtii of ser- 
vice admitted. He was aide-de-camp and secretary to his Royal High- 
ness the Duke of York, whilst commander-in-chief; and, on the acces- 
sion of King George the Fourth, holding the rank of lieutenant colonel in 
the first regiment of the Guards, he was appointed aide-de-camp to the 
King, with the rank of colonel. 

His third son, Thomas, now deceased, Avas placed in the navy, and 
attained the rank of post-captain, in the year 1814, at an early age. His 
eldest son, Henry, as well as his younger son George, early and success- 
fully embarked in commerce, and are known both in the United States 
and in Europe as merchants of the first respectability. 

Anthony, his youngest son who attained maturity, became engaged 
at an early age in the civil service of government, and now fills with high 
honor the important station of Her Britannic Majesty's Consul at New- 
York. Col. Barclay's daughters were married to Peter G. Stuyvesant, 
Esq., the late Schuyler Livingston, Esq., Mr. Parsons, and Mr. Frazer. 

Col. Barclay did not live long to enjoy his retirement. It appears as 
if the habit of activity, both of body and mind, had become a part of his 
nature, and necessary to his existence. Until that time he had retained 
the erect figure and firm gait of the soldier, the sprightliness and gaiety 
of youth, with the finished manners of a courtier. But when the excite- 
ment derived from business no longer existed, his cheerfulness and ener- 
gy began to abate, and after a short illness he expired where he drew his 
first breath, in the city of New-York, on the twenty-first of April, 1830. 

Besides his merits as a public servant, he was indefatigable as a 
friend — a most devoted husband and parent — indulgent and paternal as a 
master, — full of philanthropy to all mankind — possessing all the determi- 
nation which characterizes a soldier's, and all the gentleness which tem- 
pers and graces a woman's heart, — he was an humble, devout, and unos- 
tentatious Christian. 

His character is well portrayed by his crest, a sword, and his motto, 

"Crux Christi, nostra Corona." 



THE FAIRFAXES OF VIRGINIA. 601 



THE FAIRFAXES OF VIRGINIA. 

In this estimable and noble family the immortal Washington 
passed four years of his youth. And as it was the period when 
character usually receives its stamp, there is no doubt that the for- 
mation of his was essentially influenced by the association. 

The Hon. Col. William Fairfax, a son of Henry Fairfax of 
Towlton Hall, Yorkshire, and a grandson of Thomas the fourth 
Lord Fairfax, lost his father when very young, and was educated 
under the auspices of his Uncle, Lord Lonsdale, (ever styled Me 
good,) at Lowther School, in Westmoreland. Here he acquired a 
good knowledge of the classics as well as modern languages. At 
21 he entered the army and served in Spain during Queen Anne's 
war under his Uncle, and afterwards in the expedition against the 
Isle of Providence, then in possession of pirates. Upon its reduc- 
tion he was appointed its Governor, but the climate disagreeing with 
him he resigned his commission and removed to Salem, Massachu- 
setts, in 1724, where he resided for eight years as collector of the 
customs, and a magistrate, esteemed and respected by all. His wife 
died during this period, and he was united in a second marriage to 
Deborah, daughter of Francis Clarke, Esq., of Salem, a gentleman 
of the first respectability. Three children were the offspring of this 
connexion, viz. Bryan, William, and Hannah. He sailed from 
Salem with his family for the South on the 17th of June, 1734, and 
settled first in Westmoreland County, Virginia, near the Washington 
family, and afterwards in Fairfax County, where he erected a beau- 
tiful villa on the Potomac adjoining Mount Vernon, which he called 
Belvoir. He long sustained the offices of Lord Lieutenant and 
keeper of the rolls of the county, collector for South Potomac, and 
President of the Council of Virginia. He was highly accomplished 
and eminently distinguished for public and private virtue and re- 
ligious principle. He died Sept. 3, 1757, aged 66. Washington, 
on leaving for his command on the 23d of April, 1755, thus ad- 
dressed Col. Fairfax : — ' I cannot think of leaving the County with™ 
out embracing the last opportunity of bidding You/arei^e//,' 

76 



602 THE FAIRFAXES OF VIRGINIA. 

His eldest son, George W. Fairfax^ succeeded to his father's es- 
tate and employments. In early life he was for a while co-snrvey- 
or with Washington to his kinsman, Lord Fairfax. In 1753 he 
was a candidate for the house of burgesses, and Washington, then 
just 21, deeply interested in his success, was engaged in a personal 
altercation in his behalf, with Mr. Payne, a friend of the rival can- 
didate ; and it may be well to remark in passing, that finding him- 
self the aggressor, he made an apology, and that for ever secured 
the friendship of Mr. Payne. This is the only altercation it is be- 
lieved which Washington was engaged in during his long life. Mr. 
Fairfax took an unfavorable view of the revolutionary movement, 
and long before the appeal to arms went to England. So critical 
was his arrival there, that he passed in the river Thames the ill- 
omened tea which eventually caused the rupture between the mo- 
ther country and her colonies. It is probable he is the friend refer- 
red to by Weems in the following paragraph of his book, (p. 67.) 
' Lord Fairfax happened to be at Mount Vernon when Washington 
received advice from a friend in London, that the Tea Ships were 
about to sail for America, and said to him, " Well, njy Lord, and so 
the ships with ihe gunpowder tea, are, it seems, on their way !' 

' Why, Colonel,' replied his lordship, ' do you call it gunpowder 
tea r To which he responded, ' Because I fear it will prove in- 
flammable, and produce an explosion that will shake both hemis- 
pheres.' 

Part of Mr. Fairfax's estates were confiscated on account of his 
principles, and the heavy reverse of fortune obliged him to abandon 
his seat in Yorkshire, lay aside his carriage, and remove to Bath. 
Here he so lived as to save large sums, which he sent for the use of 
the American prisoners. He died 3d April, 1787, in his 63d year, 
lamented for his many virtues and accomplishments. 

Respecting this early and constant friend, Washington thus 
wrote to Samuel Athause— 8th Jan. 1788,—' I received your letter 
informing me of the death of our much esteemed and worthy friend, 
Geo. W. Fairfax. I sincerely condole with you and his other friends 
in England upon the occasion. Notwithstanding the long and un- 
interrupted friendship which subsisted between Col. Fairfax and 
myself, and however desirous I may be to give every proof of my 
affection for him and his amiable relict, yet I must decline acting 



THE FAIRFAXES OF VIRGINIA. 603 

as an executor of his estate. My situation* would prevent a faith- 
ful discharge of the trust on my part.' 

Thomas, second son of the Hon. Wm. Fairfax, a noidshipman, 
and esteemed one of the handsomest young men of his age. The 
following epitaph, penned by his distressed father, shows his early 
fate :— 

' To the Memory of Mr. Thomas Fairfax, 

Who died fighting in his country's cause, on board the Harwich, in 
an engagement with Mr. Bourdenaye, commander of a French 
squadron on the Indian coast, 26th June, 1746, aged 20. Beloved 
of his commander (Capt. Carteret) and highly favored by his friend 
Commodore Barnet, for his politeness of manners, and undoubted 
bravery and skill in the theory of his profession. He was excelled 
by few as a naval draughtsman, and gave early promise by a preg- 
nant genius and diligent application, of a consummate officer for 
the service of his country. But the wisdom of heaven is inscruta- 
ble ; human life is ever in the hands of its author, and while the 
good and brave are always ready for death, resignation becomes 
their surviving friend. Convinced of this duty, yet subdued by the 
sentiments of a tender parent, this tablet was inscribed and dedica- 
ted by his sorrowful father.' 

William, the fourth son, entered the army an ensign, and was 
killed in the attack on Quebec, September 13, 1759. He had 
promising abilities, and was highly esteemed by General Wolfe, 
whom he had first accompanied to Louisburg at the time of its sec- 
ond reduction. When the general landed under Quebec, he saw 
young Fairfax sitting upon the bank of the river, and said lo him, 
' Young man, when we come into action, remember your name,' 

They both fell that day on the heights of Abraham, Wolfe pro- 
claiming that he died satisfied, as he had gained the battle. 

Bryan, the third son, pursued the usual course of preparatory 
studies, and took orders in the church. He had previously passed 
some years at Barbadoes with his uncle, Maj. Gedney Clark. He 
was for many years rector of a parish in Fairfax county, Virginia, 
where he continued to officiate till his death, a counterpart of Gold- 

* President of the Convention for forming the new constitution. 



604 THE FAIRFAXES OF VIRGINIA. 

smith's village pastor. The salary and perquisites of his arduous 
office he gave for the support of the widow and children of his pre- 
decessor in the church. His views of the revolution were not in 
accordance with Washington's, but this did not in the least affect 
their friendship for each other, which commenced in infancy and 
continued without interruption through life. It is happily illus- 
trated by the following extract of a letter from Washington to him 
during the gloomy period of 1775. 

' The friendship which I ever professed and felt for you, met 
with no diminution from the difference in our political sentiments. 
I knew the rectitude of my own sentiments, and believing in the 
sincerity of yours, lamented, although I did not condemn, your re- 
nunciation of the creed I had adopted.' 

The foregoing was prompted by Washington's kind inter- 
position in obtaining permission for his retirement to England, of 
which however he was unable to avail himself in consequence of 
certain oaths and obligations required by those in power at New 
York. This service elicited the following letter from Rev. Mr. 
Fairfax to Gen. W^ashington,to which the letter just now read was 
in answer. ' There are times when favors conferred make great- 
er impressions than others ;■ — at the time when your popularity 
was at the highest, and mine at the lowest, and when it is so com- 
mon for men's resentments to run high against those who differ 
from them in opinion, that you should act with your wonted kind- 
ness to me, has affected me more than any favor I have ever receiv- 
ed, and could not he believed by some in JYew York, it being above 
the run of common minds.' 

At the decease of his kinsman Robert Lord Fairfax in 1793, 
the Rev. Bryan Fairfax succeeded to the Barony. Washington be- 
queathed him the superb Bible in three folios, which the Rev. Dr. 
Wilson, bishop of Soder and Man, had presented to the former 
with flattering testimonials of respect. Thomas, the eldest son of 
Bryan Lord Fairfax, refused an acknowledgment of the title at 
the decease of his father, which would have secured him the rich 
inheritance of Leeds Castle and its appendages. 

To a letter which the editor had the honor to address to that 
venerable gentleman in December, 1842, he received the following 
reply: 



THE FAIRFAXES OF VIRGINIA. 605 

* As to those designated loyalists, and opposed to the separation 
from England, I do not know of any of our name except it be 
Thomas Lord Fairfax, and my father, the Rev. Bryan Fairfax. As 
to the former, I suppose, though I am not sure that he ever was, 
but never heard of his suffering any persecution for political opin- 
ions. But as to my father, I know that he was, and conscientiously 
so, I believe, remaining as it were neutral and taking no part for 
or against the measures of that period ; he was not molested ex- 
cept that, with all others of the same way of thinking, he was 
doubly taxed.' To this letter Dr. Orlando Fairfax of Alexandria, 
a son of the last mentioned Thomas, appended the following note, 
viz. : 

' My father, Thomas Fairfax, a man of more than eighty years, 
is the eldest son of Bryan Lord Fairfax, but he has always been a 
reptjblican.' 

It now remains to speak of the distinguished head of this vir- 
tuous, public spirited, and accomplished family, Thomas, sixth Lord 
Fairfax, the early patron of Washington, and we deem it necessary 
to dwell more fully upon the incidents of his life and the influences 
of his character than the others : 

He was born in 1691, a son of Thomas the fifth Lord Fairfax, 
and Catherine, daughter of Lord Culpepper, in whose right he after- 
wards possessed Leeds Castle, several manors in Kent and in the 
Isle of Wight ; and also that immense tract of country comprised 
within the boundaries of the rivers Potomac and Rappahannock in 
Virginia, called the northern neck, containing by estimation five 
millions seven hundred thousand acres. He had the misfortune to 
lose his father while young, and came under the guardianship of 
his mother and grandiDOthcr, the dowager ladies Fairfax and Cul- 
pepper, the latter of whom was a Princess of the House of Hesse 
Cassel. He was sent to the University of Oxford, where he passed 
several years, and became highly esteemed for learning and ac- 
complishments. His judgment upon literary subjects was frequent- 
ly appealed to, and he was afterwards, in conjunction with Addison 
and others of the * Kit-Cat Club,' a writer of that immortal work 
the Spectator. He took a commission in the army, and at the 
time he left it (which was at the decease of the survivor of the two 



606 THE FAIRFAXES OF VIRGINIA. 

ladies before mentioned) he was at the head of a regiment called 
the * Blues.' 

He now began to inquire into the value and situation of his es- 
tates, and discovered that the proprietary lands in Virginia had 
been mismanaged. He wrote at once to his cousin, the Hon. 
William Fairfax, at Salem, Mass., requesting him to remove to 
Virginia, and take upon himself the agency of them. Mr. Fairfax 
readily complied; i. e., resigned his office, and removed there in 
1734, first into Westmoreland county, where he opened an agency 
office for the granting of the lands ; and as the quit-rent he demand- 
ed was but two shillings for every hundred acres, the vacant lands 
were rapidly let, and a considerable permanent income was soon 
derived from them. Lord Fairfax informed of these circumstances, 
determined himself to visit his kinsman, to whom he felt greatly in- 
debted, and he passed about a year with him in Virginia; and be- 
coming captivated with the climate, beauties and products of the 
country, he resolved to return and settle his affairs in England, and 
pass the remainder of his life on his vast and noble domain here. 
He probably came first to America in 1739, and finally settled on 
the northern neck in 1746, at Belvoir, in the family of his friend 
and kinsman, where he remained several years, directing the man- 
agement and surveys of his plantations, and amusing himself with 
hnnting. Game at length becoming scarce and the lands not an- 
swering his expectations in this quarter, he determined to remove to 
a fine tract in Frederick county, sixty miles above ' Belvoir.' Here 
he built a house which he called ' Greenway Court,' and laid out a 
beautiful farm. He passed the remainder of his long life after the 
manner of a gentleman farmer ; keeping many servants, several 
hunters, and a good plain table. His manners were humble, mod- 
est, and unaffected ; not tinctured in the smallest degree with arro- 
gance, pride, or self-conceit. He was also free from selfish passions, 
and was liberal almost to excess. The produce of his farm, except 
what was necessary for the consumption of his own family, was 
distributed and given away to the poor settlers in the neighborhood. 
To these he frequently advanced money to enable them to go on 
with their improvements, to clear the woods and cultivate the 
grounds, and where the lands proved unfavorable, and not likely to 



THE FAIRFAXES OF VIRGINIA. 607 

answer the expectation of the husbandman, he usually indemnified 
him for the expense he had been at in the attempt, and gratuitous- 
ly granted him fresh lands of more promising nature. He was the 
friend and father of all who held and lived under him ; and as the 
great object of his ambition was the peopling and cultivating the 
fine country of which he was the proprietor, he sacrificed every 
other pursuit, and made every other consideration subordinate to it. 
Lord Fairfax was brought up in the English revolutionary prin- 
ciples of 1688, and early imbibed high notions of liberty, and of the 
excellence of the British Constitution. He devoted much of his 
time to the public service here ; he was Lord Lieutenant and Keep- 
er of the Rolls for Frederick county; presided at the County Courts 
held at Winchester, where he always kept open table during the 
sessions. His chief amusement was hunting, and in pursuit of this 
exercise, he frequently carried his hounds to distant parts, and en- 
tertained every person of good character who attended him in the 
fields, at the inn, where he took up his residence for the hunting 
season. 

After Braddock's defeat, in 1755, the Indians in the interest of 
the French committed dreadful massacres upon the back settle- 
ments, and as Lord Fairfax had been pointed out to them as a cap- 
tain of renown, the possession of his scalp became an object of 
their sanguinary ambition. With the view of gratifying their de- 
sire, they made daily inroads in the vicinage of ' Greenway Court ;' 
and it is said that not less than three thousand lives fell sacrifices to 
their merciless barbarity between the Apalachian and Alleghany 
mountains. It was at this crisis that the gentlemen ofVirginia(forthe 
protection of the frontiers) associated themselves under command of 
Peyton Randolph, afterwards President of Congress. Serious ap- 
prehensions were at that time entertained for the safety of Lord 
Fairfax (and family), who being importuned by his friends to re- 
tire to the river settlements for security, is said to have addressed 
his nephew, who at that time bore the commission of Colonel, in 
the following manner, viz. — ' The danger we are exposed to, Col. 
Martin, which is undoubtedly great, may possibly excite in your 
mind apprehension and anxiety : — if so, I am ready to take any 
step you may judge expedient for our common safety. I am an 
old man, and it is of little importance whether I fall by the toma- 



608 THE FAIRFAXES OF VIRGINIA. 

hawk of the Indian, or by disease or old age -, but you are young, 
and it is to be hoped may have many years before you. I will, 
therefore, submit to your decision, whether we shall remain where 
we are, taking every precaution to secure ourselves against the out- 
rages of the enemy, or abandon our habitation and retire within 
the mountains, that we may be sheltered from dangers to which we 
are exposed. If we determine then to remain, it is possible that 
notwithstanding our utmost care and vigilance we may both fall 
victims; if we retire, the whole district will break up immediately, 
and all the trouble I have taken to settle this fine country will be 
prostrated and the occasion perhaps irredeemably lost.'' After a 
short deliberation, Col. Martin concluded to remain, and as affairs 
soon took a favorable turn, measures were adopted for securing the 
settlement against tlie carnage and depredations of the Indians. 
His lordship was never married, and it is thought that disappoint- 
ment in an affair of the heart had no inconsiderable share in de- 
termining his retirement from the world, to the then almost unin- 
habitable forests of America. And although he lived many years 
sequestered from polished society, he never forgot the accomplished 
manners he had acquired in his youth at Leeds Castle, and the 
University, and which secured him a welcome at Court and in the 
army. His avowed motive for removing to America, was the most 
noble and heroic, viz. — to settle the immense tract of which he 
was proprietor ; and it may be well to remark that no part of 
' The Old Dominion'' was better peopled and improved. 

So unexceptionable and disinterested was his behaviour, both in 
publie and private, and so generally was he respected and beloved, 
that although a loyalist in principle in our revolutionary struggle, 
he was neither molested nor insulted. He, of course, took no ac- 
tive part in the contest, and was, like others who thought like him 
on the subject, only doubly taxed. 

Lord Fairfax died at his farm of Greenway Court in the au- 
tumn of 1781, (then in his 92d year,) soon after learning that the 
British army under Lord Cornwallis had surrendered to General 
Washington ; ' and little did Lord Fairfax think, ^ says Weems the 
historian, * when educating George Washington, that he would one 
day sever the British empire and break his own heart.'' The last 
event was not less certain than the first, for, on hearing that the 



THE FAIRFAXES OF VIRGINIA. 609 

British array had surrendered, he said to his servant, ' Co7ne, Joe/ 
carry me to my bed, for it is high time for me to die.^ 

He was buried under the communion table of the Episcopal 
Church at Winchester, in which he had been for many years a com- 
municant. He had long before made a donation of the land upon 
which the church was erected, as well as the graveyard by which 
it was surrounded ; and to their shame be it spoken, this ecclesias- 
tical corporation sold this consecrated spot in 1833, when the bones 
of no less than one thousand persons, including those of its phil- 
anthropic and noble donor, were removed, and a row of brick build- 
ings now covers the site ! 

The title passed to Robert, the only surviving brother of the 
deceased. The estates in Virginia were confiscated, in consequence 
of loyal principles honestly imbibed and frankly avowed by the late 
proprietor. The illustrious John Jay said, ' the revolution was a 
subject upon which men might honestly differ.' 

Robert Lord Fairfax clainied from the British government 
ninety-eight thousand pounds sterling, as the "amount of property 
confiscated — and to himself and the trustees under the will were 
finally awarded sixty-thousand pounds sterling by the Commission- 
ers appointed to inquire into and make reparation for the losses and 
services of American Loyalist?. 

Robert, the seventh Lord Fairfax, died at Leeds Castle in 1793 ; 
and the Rev. Byran Fairfax, of whom we have before spoken, suc- 
ceeded to the title. 

Such were the connexions, nearest neighbors, most intimate 
friends, associates and patrons of Washington, from infancy to man- 
hood ! In these noblemen public spirit and private virtue were 
ever exemplified ; their individual interest was always a secondary 
consideration to the public welfare. They foresaw the rising great- 
ness of the west, and adopted a system for its settlement, which has 
since been pursued by our government for improving the public 
domain. 

This western wild was not a field on which England's scholars 
or soldiers could expect to reap renown. When they left Europe 
and the attractions of court, they, of course, abandoned all the hope 
of worldly fame ; their highest aim appears to have been to settle 
with a moral and religious people, a vast territory, and thereby en- 



6 10 THE FAIRFAXES OF VIRGINIA. 

hance the happiness of individuals and the general good of man- 
kind. With almost boundless wealth — 

' They scattered blessings o'er a smiling land, 
And read their history in a nation's eyes.' 

If the foundation of that sublime structure, the character of 
Washington, was laid by his exemplary parents; for the manner in 
which it was raised step by step to its dazzling height, we must re- 
fer to the principles, precepts, and examples of the noble family of 
which he was so long an inmate, and whose virtues seem to have 
so fully impressed him. Here it was that good morals, so carefully 
inculcated by his mother, were fostered ; and here were religious 
observances constantly practised and enjoined ; nor were they for- 
gotten when by the influence of these friends he was preferred for a 
military command. Col. William Fairfax, president of the council, 
thus addressed Washington when encamped at the Great Meadows 
in 1754: ' / ivill not doubt your having -public prayers in the camp.* 

And where but in a family of retired soldiers could Washington 
so early have acquired such knowledge of the art of war as to be- 
come qualified for the office of adjutant general at nineteen 1 Or 
for the mission to Fort Du Quesne, which reflected such credit upon 
his judgment and observation ? The profession of arms however 
had no peculiar charm for Washington, for very soon after adopting 
it he thus addressed by letter the speaker of the Assembly of Vir- 
ginia: ' The sole motive which invites me to the field is the laudable 
desire of serving my country, not the gratification of any ambitious 
or lucrative •plans.'' And to his wife, on accepting the chief com- 
mand of the army raised "for the defence of American liberty," in 
1775, he writes thus: ' As it has been a kind of destiny that has 
thrown me upon this service, I shall hope that ray undertaking it, 
is designed to answer some good purpose. It was utterly out of my 
power to refuse it without exposing my character to such censures 
as would have reflected dishonor on myself, and given pain to ray 
iends.' 

In 1788, he thus replied to the address of a corporate body : 
' How pitiful in the eye of reason and religion is that false ambition 
which desolates the world with fire and sword for the purpose of 
conquest and fame, compared to the milder virtues of making our 



ADMIRAL JOHN PAUL JONES. 611 

neighbors and fellow-men as happy as their frail condition will 
permit them to be.' 

Neither was Washington ambitious of place or power ; for 
when called upon to become chief magistrate in the new govern- 
ment of 1789, he thus writes to General Knox : ' I should with 
less regret go to the tomb of my ancestors than enter the vortex of 
politics.' 

Probably it was from Lord Fairfax the courtier of Britain's 
" Augustan" age that ' Washington acquired the very dignified, 
and courtly manners in which he discovered,' says Chief Justice 
Marshall, ' a just consciousness of that respect which is due to sta- 
tion, and whereby he maintained the happy medium between the 
arrogance that wounds and the facility which allows the office to 
be degraded in the person who fills it.' 

And from whom but one of the co-writers with Addison of the 
admirable " Spectator" could he have acquired a style so forcible 
and perspicuous as to elicit from one of the first historians of our day 
(Mr. Allison) the following praise : ' He bequeathed to his country- 
men an address on leaving their government to which there is no 
composition of uninspired wisdom which can bear a comparison.' 

The foregoing was included in a lecture " On the early Associa- 
tions of Washington and their Influence on the Formation of his 
Character," delivered by the editor before the Richmond County 
Lyceum Association on the 23d Nov. 1843. 



ADMIRAL JOHN PAUL JONES. 

It has been the fate of many distinguished men to live unap- 
preciated by their contemporaries, and to have their merits ac- 
knowledged, only very tardily, even by the posterity, whom their 
exertions have most largely benefited. Amongst these, and in a 
conspicuous niche, we would place Admiral John Paul Jones. 
Born in the peaceful ranks of an agriculturist, he raised himself 
at an early age to the highest grade of his adopted profession, and 
as a Captain in the infant navy of the United States, performed 
such deeds of valor, as to draw from the immortal Washington, the 



612 ADMIRAL JOHN PAUL JONES. 

singularly strong expression, that "his achievements had com- 
manded the admiration of the world." 

From peculiar circumstances his enemies were enabled to place 
his character in a very false position before the public, and to de- 
prive him during his lifetime of that high appreciation which his 
conduct and services so justly merited. The following short sketch 
of his life is derived from the most authentic sources, and will we 
trust have some effect in clearing away the clouds of calumny 
which have so long hung over his memory. 

About twenty years ago, accident placed in our possession a 
large collection of original papers, consisting of letters and other 
documents, both of a public and private character, that had belong- 
ed to this celebrated man. On perceiving their importance in an 
historical point of view, we did not hesitate to put them into the 
hands of a popular writer, in the full expectation, not however des- 
tined to be realized, that he would use them in vindication of the 
memory of our hero in his then forthcoming work, the " Naval 
History of the United States." This opportunity having been 
neglected, it falls to our lot now to repair, in as far as lies in our 
power, the mistake we committed, in our original disposition of 
these valuable papers. 

Admiral John Paul Jones was the son of John Paul, a respecta- 
ble farmer, in the parish of Kirkbean, in the south of Scotland. 
He was born in the year 1747, and being of an enterprising dispo- 
sition, he went to sea at a very early age. His character for tal- 
ent, integrity, and good conduct was such, that we find him before 
he was eighteen years old in command of a vessel to the West 
Indies. 

In this employ he continued for some years, until in suppressing 
a mutiny, he so wounded one of his seamen, as to cause his death. 
For this he was tried, and honorably acquitted in the port in the 
West Indies, where it occurred ; but on his return to England, he 
experienced so much persecution on account of it, as to induce him. 
to leave that country for ever, and to seek refuge in Virginia, which 
he had previously visited, and where he had a brother already per- 
manently settled. In the year 1774, this brother died and be- 
queathed him considerable property. Having thus become a land- 
ed proprietor, he felt entirely attached to Virginia, as his country 



ADMIRAL JOHN PAUL JONES. 613 

and his home, — and when the difficulties commenced with England, 
he did not hesitate to attach himself to the side of the Colonies, ard 
to make them an offer of his services. 

His friends, Mr. Robert Morris and Mr. Hughes, members of 
Congress, and General Jones of North Carolina, knowing his value, 
recommended him strongly, and he was immediately appointed a 
senior first lieutenant of the navy. Feeling himself under particu- 
lar oblio-ations to General Jones for his kindness, he assumed that 
gentleman's name, and ever afterwards called and signed himself 
John Paul Jones. 

After a cruise in the Alfred of 28 guns, he was in February, 
J776, placed in command of the Providence, of 12 guns. With 
this vessel, in the short space of six weeks he captured no less than 
sixteen merchantmen, and completely destroyed the fishing estab- 
lishment at Isle Madame. He fought the " Solebay of 28 guns," 
for several hours, and on two separate occasions encountered the 
« Milford of 32 guns." 

On the 10th of October, 1776, he received his commission as a 
Captain, and was appointed to command the Alfred, in which he 
destroyed the fisheries at Port Royal, and captured all the vessels 
there, with their freights on board, bound to Europe. 

Next year he was appointed to the " Ranger of 18 guns," with 
which he proceeded to Europe, and on the 2d February, 1778, at 
Brest, received from Count D'Orvilliers, the first salute ever paid 
to the American flag by a foreign man-of-war. In April, of the 
same year, he sailed against Whitehaven, scaled the walls of the 
fort, and spiked the cannon, 38 in number. Shortly afterwards, he 
landed at St. Mary's Isle, the seat of the Earl of Selkirk, and the 
crew having plundered the house of the plate, Jones bought it from 
them, and returned it. A pleasing correspondence took place in 
consequence, between the parties, in which the Earl and the Coun- 
tess both expressed their high sense of his honorable conduct on the 
occasion. Their letters ought to have been suflScient to refute all 
the calumnies, of which the malicious and distorted accounts of this 
transaction were the fruitful source, and which w^ere eagerly seized 
on by his enemies to do him injury. 

While on the English coast, the " Drake of 20 guns," was sent 
out against him. This vessel, though of superior force, he promptly 



614 ADMIRAL JOHN PAUL JONES. 

engaged and captured, in the sight of an immense concourse of 
people assembled on the shore to see him taken, as the commander 
of the Drake had promised, before he went out, would soon be the 
case. He carried his prize into Brest, where he became involved 
in a variety of difficulties for want of money to pay his crew, and 
support his prisoners. In addition, he had the mortification to find 
that the "Indien" frigate, which had been destined for him, was 
made over to France, because the American Commissioners had 
not the means for her completion. 

The " Ranger " was sent back to America under the command 
of a lieutenant ; and Jones himself was detained in France to take 
command of a squadron which, it was promised, would soon be 
ready for him. The vacillating pohcy of the French ministry and 
the jealousy of their naval officers, caused the delay of a year, 
during which Jones employed himself in planning expeditions; 
and urging them on the attention of the Government. In one of 
these, the Marquis Lafayette proposed to accompany him with a 
large body of troops, but none were adopted ', the French ministry 
being probably too much occupied with other matters to attend to 
them, or perhaps thinking them too bold and daring in their con- 
ception, to be likely to be attended with success in execution. 

While at Brest, brooding over the dilatoriness of the French 
government, chance threw in his way a copy of" Poor Richard's 
Maxims," by Dr. Franklin. The first sentence that caught his eye 
on opening the book, was one, saying, " If you wish your business 
faithfully and expeditiously executed, go and do it yourself; if other- 
wise send." This struck him as so peculiarly applicable to himself, 
that he immediately set out for Paris,wherehe found that his personal 
attendance was alone wanting to carry the instructions of the Gov- 
ernment into effect, and to complete the equipment of a squadron 
of five vessels of war to be placed under his command. 

These were, the Alliance 36 — Pallas 30 — Ceres 18 — Ven- 
geance 18, and his own ship, the Duras, of 40 guns. This last he 
called the Bon Homme Richard, in honor of the author of the 
" Maxims," by w-hich he had on this occasion been so much bene- 
fited. She was an old East Indiaman, nearly unfit for service, as 
is evident from the following extract of a letter from Jones to Dr. 
Franklin : " We have inspected the ' Bon Homme Richard,' and it 



ADMIRAL JOHN PAUL JONES. 615 

is the constructor's opinion that she is too old to admit of the ne- 
cessary alterations. Thus circumstanced, I wish for an opportunity 
of attempting an essential service to render myself worthy of a 
better and a faster sailing ship." 

On the 14th of August, 1779, Jones left L'Orient with his squad- 
ron, and a heterogeneous crew, to intercept the Baltic fleet. Ow- 
ing to the desertion of part of the squadron, and the bad conduct of 
the " Alliance," he could only capture the convoy, consisting of the 
" Serapis of 50 guns," and the " Countess of Scarborough of 20." 
He himself, in the " Bon Homme Richard," encountered tlie Sera- 
pis, and took her after one of the most severe and proportionably 
sanguinary fights ever recorded. The English Commodore Pear- 
son, who commanded the Serapis, gives the following account of 
the situation of the " Bon Homme Richard " after the action, in his 
official despatches : "Her counters were entirely driven in, and the 
lower deck guns all dismounted ; she was on fire in two places, 
with seven feet of water in the hold, and 306 men killed and 
wounded, out of a crew of 380." 

Commodore Jones carried his prizes into the Texel, and when 
he appeared on the Amsterdam Exchange, he was styled the 
" Terror of England," — rather a high sounding title, it must be 
confessed, but sufficiently indicative of the admiration which his 
conduct and bravery had elicited even from the phlegmatic Dutch- 
men. 

While in Holland, he succeeded, in despite of the diplomatic 
exertions of Sir Joseph Yorke, the British ambassador, in engaging 
the States General in the war with England. 

On his return to France, his reception was most enthusiastic, 
and Loius XVI. invested him with the order of military merit, and 
presented him with a sword of honor. 

On his return to America, a gold medal was ordered by Con- 
gress to be struck in honor of his achievements, and by a unani- 
mous vote of that august body, he was appointed to the command 
of the " America," a line of battle ship of 74 guns, then being 
built at Portsmouth, and the only vessel of her class at that time in 
our infant navy. The fates, however, again interfered to prevent 
him from having the command of a ship suited to his merits ; for 
after he had superintended her construction, and made her as he 



|B16 ADMIRAL JOHN PAUL JONES. 

states in his correspondence, the most perfect vessel of her class in 
the world, Congress deemed themselves called on to present the 
" America " to France, in lieu of the " Magnifique," lost in our 
waters. 

Thus disappointed, and in pursuance of the recommendation of 
Congress, he joined the fleets of D'Estaing and D'Orvilliers. 

In the year 1786, he was appointed by Congress its Agent to 
Denmark and Sweden, to obtain an indenmity for the prizes taken 
under his command into their ports, and delivered over by them to 
the enemy. 

Soon after this, he was induced by the advice of Mr. Jefferson, 
then our minister at Paris, to enter the Russian naval service. The 
negotiations which had been very ably opened by him at Copen- 
hagen and Stockholm, were transferred to Paris, and finally 
brought to a satisfactory conclusion. He entered the service of 
her Imperial Majesty with the rank of Rear Admiral, and in an 
action against the Turks in the Liraan Sea, on the 7th of June, 
1788, he so distinguished himself as to be immediately promoted to 
the rank of Vice Admiral, and to receive from the hands of the 
Empress the decoration of the illustrious order of St. Ann. 

Notwithstanding his success, the slanderous calumnies of his 
enemies reached him even here, and acting on a mind of acute sen- 
sibility, so embittered his days, as to induce him to resign his com- 
mand and return to Paris, where his varied and eventful career was 
brought to a final close by his death, at the early age of 45 years, 
on the 12th September, 1792. 

The National Assembly of France decreed a public funeral and 
mourning on the melancholy occasion. A deputation from that 
body attended, and M. Mauon, an eloquent orator, was appointed 
to pronounce his funeral oration, which closes in the following 
words : 

" Imitate him in his contempt of danger, in his devotedness to 
his adopted country, in his noble heroism, which, after having been 
the astonishment of the present generation, must continue to be the 
imperishable object of the veneration of future ages." 

His remains were deposited in a leaden coffin, the more easily 
to be removed in case they should be claimed by our Government. 
This however was never done, and, more ungrateful still, Congress 



ADMIRAL JOHN PAUL JONES. 617 

have never liquidated the just claim put forward by his present rep- 
resentative, George L. Lowden, Esq., a grand-nephew of Admiral 
Jones, for disbursements actually made by him, which, with interest, 
amount to about $60,000. This appears the more unjust, as his 
services to the country were gratuitous. 

A short time before his death, he was appointed by President 
Washington, Mr. Jefferson being then Secretary of State, Commis- 
sioner to Algiers, for the purpose of redeeming from captivity the 
American citizens who were confined in the dungeons of that bar- 
barous power. It is not known whether the news of this appoint- 
ment reached Paris in time to relieve, in some degree, the gloom 
which hung over the latter days of his life ; but that it was made 
is sufficient evidence of the high estimate which our eminent pa- 
triots and statesmen had formed of his character and abilities. 

We have thus brought to a close our imperfect sketch of the 
history of this extraordinary man. In his character were found all 
the tenderness and sensibility of a woman united to the courage and 
daring of a hero. To the latter may be attributed the many victo- 
ries he achieved ; while in the former we recognise the source of 
that exquisite sensitiveness, which enabled the calumnies of his 
enemies to inflict such rankling wounds on his happiness as embit- 
tered his whole existence, and finally brought him to an early 
grave. 

In the account between him and the United States, there is, we 
are sorry to say, a fearful balance against our country. To our 
cause he freely devoted his talents, his fortune, and his life. With 
his own hands he hoisted the star-spangled banner on board of the 
Alfred, in the Delaware, the first time it ever floated to the breeze. 
At the mast-head of a ship under his command, it received its first 
national salute from a foreign power. Fighting under its folds he 
was the first to cause the meteor flag of England to strike before 
it, and on the very coasts of Britain, in defiance of the proudest 
navy in the world, he caused the astonished enemies of America to 
quail beneath his prowess. And what was his reward 1 Neglect 
while living, and forgetfulness when dead. " Done to death by 
tongues of envious men," no one of all thosi , in whose cause he 
fought and bled, have, as yet, thought fit to do public justice to his 
memory. And his heir is even obliged to sustain a heavy pecuniary 

77 



618 THE CUNNINGHAMS 

loss in consequence of his actual disbursements on account of the 
United States. 

[The above is deduced from a Lecture upon the Life and Ex- 
ploits of Admiral Jones, delivered by the editor of this work before 
the Mercantile Library Association, Clinton HaU, New-York, Janu- 
ary 2, 1844.] 



THE CUNNINGHAMS OF SOUTH CAROLINA, 

.AND STRICTURES ON THE RECEIVED HISTORY OF THE WAR IN THE SOUTH. 

During the revolutionary contest, S. Carolina was the scene 
of one of th(*raost wasteful and bloody civil wars that ever raged 
in any country at any age. History blushes at the recital of its 
horrors, and willinj^ly suppresses many of its enormities. 

In such times party spirit and private feeling entirely pervert 
men's judgments, and the story of each encounter is one of daring 
heroism, or of cold-blooded atrocity, according to the views and 
passions of the narrator. Unfortunately for the loyalists of South 
Carolina, all the written testimony of the period is from the pens of 
their opponents, by whom their actions have been misrepresented, 
their motives misconstrued, and themselves vilified and abused. 
Oral testimony, tradition, and the scanty records of private families 
are all they have now to rely on for Iheir defence and justification. 
Theirs also has been the losing side, " Victrix causa Diis placuit 
sed victa Catoni." But the feelings of admiration inspired of old 
by the contemplation of the generous virtue of the high souled 
Roman, meet, we fear, with but little sympathy in our dayj and 
principle, to be honored or respected, must now be on the win- 
ning side. Certain it is, that in this country the unflinching integ- 
rity of the Tories of the Revolution has, hitherto, been thought 
worthy only of execration ; their conduct has been constantly attri- 
buted to the most unworthy motives, and their memory has been 
allowed to remain under the most unmerited reproach. 
^ Amongst the active loyalist families of that period, none, per- 
haps, has been so loaded with obloquy as that of the Cunninghams 
of S. Carolina ; and the following history, containing a record of 
their deeds, will show how hardly they have been dealt with. This 



OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 619 

record will naturally embrace an account of the situation of the 
colony previous to, and at the commencement of, the Revolution, 
as well as some strictures on the received histories of that eventful 
period. 

The family of Cunningham in Scotland, now represented by 
William Cunningham, Esq., of Craigends, of which that of S. 
Carolina is a branch, have been long distinguished for their deter- 
mined hostility to all exertions of arbitrary power, whether pro- 
ceeding from the ill-defined prerogative of the monarch, or from 
the usurped authority of associated bodies of men. They were ac- 
cordingly among the earliest, as well as the most formidable, of 
the opponents of the ecclesiastical tyranny of the Church of Rome 
in that country. During the struggle for religious freedom, and 
particularly during the reign of the bigoted James the II., it is 
well known that many Scotchmen, who suffered persecution on 
account of non-conformity, preferred leaving their native country 
to doing violence to their consciences, and purchasing permission 
to remain at the expense of connivances and concessions which 
were, in their eyes, not only weak but sinful and wicked. Amongst 
others, the ancestors of the Cunninghams of S. Carolina, about the 
year IGSi, came over to America, and finally settled in Augusta 
county, Virginia, in the region of the beautiful valley of the She- 
nandoah. The main branch of the family continued to reside there 
until the year 1769, when it consisted of John Cunningham with 
four sons and three daughters. In January of that year Robert 
and Patrick, the two eldest sons, removed to district " Ninety-six" 
in South Carolina. Robert settled at Island Ford on the Saluda 
river, and was the first " magistrate" or rather circuit judge ap- 
pointed for Ninety-six district. As this office was instituted during 
the year 1769, it is evident he must have received the appointment 
within a year after his arrival in the colony. On the 9th of March 
of the same year, Patrick was made, by patent, deputy surveyor 
general of the province of S. Carolina, under Sir Egerton Leigh, 
then surveyor general. 

Thus, in a large and populous district, comprising nearly one- 
fourth of the whole province, two strangers receive offices of high 
trust and emolument ; among the highest, indeed, which the jealous 
policy of the English government was in the habit of bestowing on 



620 THE CUNNINGHAMS 

the native born inhabitants of the colonies, manifesting the high 
sense entertained of their merit and character. Patrick settled on 
the Saluda river, now Laurens district, where his descendants have 
since resided. In 1770 the two younger brothers, John and David, 
with three sisters, removed also to S. Carolina. John became a 
planter, and David was appointed deputy surveyor of Ninety-six 
district. Robert, after a short residence at Island Ford, removed 
to Peach Hill, where he resided when the troubles commenced. 

In order to understand fully the events which afterwards occurred, 
it will be necessary to go back to about twenty years previous to 
the Revolution. At that early stage in the settlement of the upper 
country of S. Carolina, the Indians roamed through it at pleasure ; 
few, if any, symptoms of civilization were perceptible, and naught 
met the eye save uncultivated nature, with occasionally the rude 
wigwam of the savage proprietors. Such neighbors were by no 
means agreeable to the settlers on the seaboard, who, as the 
" Royal proprietors," spared no exertion to drive the others to the 
mountains. Grants of one and two hundred acres of land were 
made, for the most trifling consideration, to all who would occupy 
them, and pains were taken to represent this new country as a 
second " Eldorado," to attract the ambitious as well as the needy 
of other lands to settle on it. Population in consequence poured 
in. Industry and increasing numbers soon begat wealth and 
strength, so that in the short space of twenty years the upper coun- 
try, constituting the district " Ninety-six," had become the wealth- 
iest and most^ thickly settled portion of the province. During the 
first thirteen years, however, the population was of so mongrel a 
cast, the poverty and other difficulties so great, the law so power- 
less, and the leading guardians of the country so utterly neglectful, 
that the district had a fearful struggle for very existence as a civil- 
ized community. Great numbers of ruffians of the lowest class, too 
lazy to labor for their support, too lawless to respect the rights of 
others, and too licentious to submit themselves to the restraint of 
any regular life, taking advantage of the confusion arising from the 
constant inroads of the Indians, and the inefficiency of the govern- 
ment, preyed on tlie industry of the community, and rejoiced in the 
excitement of a life of plunder and rapine. The log houses and 
rude fences of the early settlers were but an insecure protection 



OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 621 

against the inroads of these depredators. Horses and cattle were 
their easy prey, and no man went to bed at night without a feeling 
of insecurity, and a dread lest the ensuing morning should disclose 
to him some misfortune in the loss of what constituted, if not all, 
at least by far the most important portion of his wealth. At last, the 
state of the country became so desperate, that the more respectable 
and energetic of the inhabitants, finding no protection from the 
laws, and justifying themselves by the necessity of the case, united 
in parties, and, without even any form of law, inflicted summary 
punishment on all offenders who fell into their power. The origi- 
nal motive for thus organizing themselves into an executive party 
was, no doubt, a good one; and the necessity of the times seems to 
have called for the adoption of some such measure. But the pos- 
session of absolute and irresponsible power is always dangerous, 
and it was particularly liable to abuse, when usurped by men whose 
feelings had been irritated, and whose angry passions had been ex- 
cited, by a succession of losses extremely difficult to repair, and 
against the recurrence of which they deemed it impossible to guard, 
except by measures of the utmost severity, directed against whom- 
soever they might have the slightest ground to suspect of being 
implicated. The innocent, consequently, often suffered for the 
guilty, and the punishment of crime was, in too many instances, 
made the plausible pretext for the gratification of private revenge. 
Feuds and animosities between families were soon generated, and, 
at length, increased to such an extent, as to throw every thing into 
lawless confusion. The sufferers, joined by all who looked with 
abhorrence at the infliction of punishment without trial by jury, 
having made application to the Governor and Council, an agent 
was appointed in 1764 to investigate matters, and to proceed legally 
and impartially against all offenders. This person, however, proved 
wholly unfit for the proper discharge of his difficult and responsible 
office, and his arbitrary and unjust conduct soon produced another 
appeal to the Governor in Council, which happily resulted in the 
Circuit Court law of 1769, establishing courts of justice at Ninety-six, 
Camden, and Orangeburg. Under this law Robert Cunningham 
was appointed the first magistrate, or rather circuit judge, for 
" Ninety-six" district. Five years of prosperity and peace suc- 
ceeded this arrangement, but the seeds of rancor and animosity 



622 THE CUNNINGHAMS 

had been previously too extensively and too deeply sown to be 
easily eradicated, and they appeared to be suppressed for a time, 
only to burst forth with greater violence and bitterness, as soon as 
they were permitted to show themselves in the tumultuary scenes 
which preceded the Revolution. Thus far, however, the settlers in 
the upper country appeared to be prosperous, harmonious, and 
rapidly increasing in wealth and numbers. Devoted to the culti- 
vation of their lands, they mixed but little with the inhabitants of 
the lower country, and were disposed to consider the latter more as 
ambitious intriguers for place and power, addicted to the acquire- 
ment of wealth by irregular means, than as a persevering or 
honestly industrious population. Removed, in a great measure, 
from the immediate sphere of British oppression, the unjust taxation 
of the mother country was neither much felt nor complained of by 
them, and the outbreaks in the north, and the commotions on their 
own seaboard, were attributed generally to the intrigues and ambition 
of political demagogues, rather than held to be the legitimate con- 
sequences of pure and unselfish love of country. It must be recol- 
lected too, that, in the early stages of the revolution, few thought 
or even dreamed of a separation from the mother country, and the 
only motives assigned for the extreme and warlike measures of en- 
rolling troops, &c., were an express determination to resist the 
payment of unjust taxes, and the expectation that England might 
be induced to revoke her arbitrary acts by a violent and extended 
show of opposition on the part of the colonies. When, however, 
these demonstrations were followed up by acts of violence of the 
harshest and most vindictive character, against those who wished to 
remain neutral, we cannot be surprised that the patriotism of the 
leaders of the movement party, whose deeds contrasted so unfavor- 
ably with their public declarations, should now be somewhat more 
than suspected by those who had always distrusted the purity of 
their motives. Had it been declared at once that their object was 
a separation, the violence of their conduct, though quite unjustifiable, 
might have been susceptible of some palliation, in consideration of 
the magnitude of the stake for which they M'ere contending, and 
the certainty of the ignominious fate that awaited them in case 
their attempt should prove unsuccessful. But as they asserted their 
movement to be strictly a defensive one, and to hold in abhorrence 



OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 623 

the idea of throwing off their allegiance, it is difficult to reconcile 
the cruelties they perpetrated with honesty of purpose, and, after 
making every allowance for the enthusiasm, under the influence of 
which political as well as religious bigots, in every age of the 
world, have endeavored by force to secure compliance, wherever 
their reasoning failed to produce conviction, the impartial historian 
will still have to record much to be accounted for only by the 
recklessness with which unprincipled men who assume, of their 
own authority, irresponsible power, are almost always:found to allow 
their passions and the impulse of the moment to have uncontrolled 
sway over their minds. 

Under such circumstances, it appeared to the Cunninghams, that 
though the English government ought not to be permitted to impose 
taxes on the colonies without their concurrence, yet the people 
would gain but little, if they escaped the injustice of the British 
Parliament, only to subject themselves to the odious tyranny of an 
arbitrary faction at home. They, therefore, advocated the adoption 
of milder measures, thinking the time had not yet arrived when a 
sufficient force could be organized successfully to resist the power 
of England. And they were apprehensive that, in case of an in- 
effectual struggle, their condition would, after much misery and 
bloodshed, be only more hopelessly deplorable than ever. When, 
therefore, the Assembly in July 1775 passed a vote in commenda- 
tion of Massachusetts, and also a non-importation act, Robert Cun- 
ningham was opposed to both, and afterwards when the " Asso- 
ciation Act" was passed he openly expressed his disapprobation of 
it in the strongest terms. This independent line of conduct soon 
brought him, and those who acted with him, under the ban of the 
dominant party, and it would far exceed our limits to enumerate 
all the insults that were heaped upon them, or the many grievances 
of which they had ere long to complain. As force has ever yet 
proved but a feeble instrument in the work of conversion, its effect 
on the loyalists was only to make them adhere the more firmly to 
their principles, and to drive ihem into active and determined hos- 
tility. Vengeance for wrongs committed against themselves and 
their families whetted their swords, and directed the aim of their 
muskets. A civil war raged with unmitigated fury, and its guilt 
of right belongs to those with whom it originated. 



624 THE CUNNINGHAMS 

The first overt acts of oppression were in connection with the 
" Association Act" which all were required to join. A general 
committee and a council of safety were appointed to inquire into 
the state of the country, and to take such steps as they might deem 
expedient, or thij,ik best calculated to enforce the views of the po- 
pular party. In pursuance of this policy the general committee 
summoned all the inhabitants of Charleston who had not signed 
the Association Act to appear before them on the 23d day of July, 
1775, and to declare their reasons for refusing to sign it. Some 
who, in consequence, appeared, were ordered to confine themselves 
to their houses or plantations, as the reasons they gave for not 
signing were considered as by no means satisfactory ; others, and 
the greater number, preferred to leave their country and their 
homes, and to throw themselves on the protection of England, rather 
than submit to the persecution of which they foresaw this was only 
the commencement. No sooner had they done so than it was pro- 
posed by Middleton and some of the more violent of the committee, 
to take possession of their estates ; but the time had not yet arrived 
for the adoption of so extreme a measure, and the motion was 
lost. Two commissioners, William Henry Drayton and the Rev. 
Mr. Tennent, the latter a Presbyterian minister of some notoriety, 
were appointed to make a circuit of the upper country, to explain 
the motives of their proceedings, and to induce the people there to 
join the Association. The inhabitants of the upper country had, in 
the meantime, sent Moses Kirkland on a mission to the Governor, 
to obtain information on the state of affairs, and to seek advice as 
to the line of conduct they ought to pursue. The commissioners 
tried to have him arrested, but failed in the attempt, and he returned 
in safety, bringing with him commissions from the Governor, and 
encouragement for the people to hold out against the Association. 
He also brought the news of the violent proceedings that had al- 
ready taken place in Charleston. The post-office had been broken 
open, the military magazines seized, armed companies formed, a 
clergyman obliged to leave the country for having preached a ser- 
mon on " passive conduct," and the Governor himself forced to 
take refuge on board of a sloop of war in the harbor. All this 
excited their fears as to the consequences of yielding to or joining a 
party which seemed so entirely destitute of prudence or moderation, 



OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 625 

and a disgraceful incident soon after occurred to confirm their op- 
position. Colonel Thomas Brown, of Augusta, having in some 
moments of conviviality amused himself by laughing at the pre- 
tensions of the rebels, as they then were, was seized, tarred and 
feathered, and on his firm refusal to sign their " Association," his 
naked feet were roasted before a large fire, as long as his torturers 
supposed human nature could bear such exquisite torment. Brown, 
as soon as he was able, burning with indignation and revenge, 
went to the loyal inhabitants of district " Ninety-six," where his 
recital of the indignities he had suffered excited the strongest sym- 
pathy, and a determination not to allow themselves to be dragooned 
into obedience to so cruel and lawless a faction. It was whilst 
they were in this state of excitement, that the commissioners, Dray- 
ton and Tennent, made their appearance. Instead of trying to 
conciliate, they attempted to force the people to take the " oath" 
they required of them, by declaring " that no miller should be 
allowed to grind for the recusants, and that an armed force would 
be stationed at the gates of Charleston, both to intercept any of 
their produce that should be sent to market, and to prevent them 
from taking with them any thing they should purchase in that city. 
Drayton, in his " Memoirs," says, 'that in their discussions before 
the people " Robert Cunningham was beaten off the field, and 
stole away much mortified ;" yet he adds that " when the people 
met on the day of election to vote for representatives they dispersed 
without doing so, on receiving a letter from Cunningham, Kirk- 
land, &c." This shows these Memoirs are not much to be relied 
on, as, had he been beaten off the field Cunningham's letter would 
hardly have met such prompt obedience. The " Memoirs" go on 
to state that the Commissioners arrived at Fair Forest, the residence 
of the " Nabob Col. Fletchall," on the 19th August, and " found 
him surrounded by his court, consisting of Brown, Cunningham, 
and Robinson, who watch his motions, and have him completely 
under their control," " that reasoning was vain against those who 
were fixed by royal emoluments," but that " they had surprised 
Fletchall into a promise to assemble his regiment on Wednesday," 
" that Brown's bitterness and violence were intolerable," and that 
he had the " impertinence" to tell Drayton that " he believed he 
did not mean well to the king," at which, says the latter, " I almost 



626 THE CUNNINGHAMS 

lost my caution." Here we observe Drayton takes great credit to 
himself and his reverend coadjutor for having surprised an honest 
man into an indiscreet promise ; he speaks angrily of the bitterness 
of a gentleman who has just had his feet half scorched off by the 
ruffianism of their party ; and to cap the climax, he pretends to 
have his virtuous indignation aroused almost beyond bearing by the 
insinuation that " he did not mean well to the king." Proh pudor! 
Notwithstanding his boasting, however, this chronicler was obliged 
to confess that their progress would be in vain, and a civil war in- 
evitable, unless some dozen persons were seized, whose influence 
he had only shortly before asserted to be on the wane. On such 
contradictions it is unnecessary to comment, and they are brought 
forward here only to show the partisan character of the history. A 
meeting of the inhabitants of the district summoned by the Com- 
missioners took place on the 23d of August, at the Enoree, and the 
" Memoirs" state that very few assembled, owing to the " contriv- 
ances of the heads of the other party." At this meeting Robert 
Cunningham told the Commissioners that he had said to his men 
that " if they were satisfied with their present opinions there was 
no occasion for them to hear the addresses." 

After this the Commissioners separated, and Drayton went to 
Snow Hill, near Augusta. A report having reached him on the 
29th of August, that Kirkland had taken up arms to recover Fort 
Charlotte and attack Augusta, and that Cunningham and Brown 
were to be of the party, he immediately ordered out three companies 
to be joined by a hundred men from Augusta, and Colonel Thomp- 
son was directed to march with his rangers, consisting of nearly 
three hundred militia, to take post at the " Ridge," and Colonel 
Richards, with three hundred at Enoree. to be a check on Fletchall. 
He then issued a proclamation to be published in district Ninety-six, 
delaying an appointed meeting, stigmatizing Kirkland's conduct as 
criminal, and declaring all who took arms at his instigation to be 
public enemies, who should be put down by the sword. Kirkland's 
movement, if ever intended, which is doubtful, never took place, 
and he himself, apprehensive of personal violence, escaped to the 
sea coast. 

Hearing that Cunningham and Brown continued to collect 
men, Drayton, on the 6th of September, marched for Ninety-six 



OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 627 

Court House, with 120 men, and four swivels, intending to 
join the rangers and militia there, to march into Fletchall's 
quarters, and to compel a surrender of the principal loyalists. He 
arrived unexpectedly at the C. H. on the 8th, and immediately 
despatched a party to surprise and seize Robert Cunningham. He 
had quitted his reisdence the day before, but his papers fell into 
their hands. Both parties now prepared for hostile measures. 
Drayton, Williarason.'and Mayson proceeded to put district Ninety- 
six into a posture of defence, and the loyalists assembled at Dr. 
Peal's mills ; and, afterwards, under the command of Col. Fletchall, 
moved their camp to within four miles of Saluda, where they num- 
bered about 1200 men. Drayton with 1000 men encamped about 
three-quarters of a mile in advance of district Ninety-six, and at 
about ten miles distant from the loyalists. His men had been for 
some time under continual training, while the others were chiefly 
raw volunteers, who had no more knowledge of military drill, 
than what a muster day now and then could give them. In addi- 
tion, Drayton was in possession of a strong fort, commanding the 
plain in which he was encamped. 

Under these circumstances, Fletchall did not consider that he 
ought to yield to the impatience of his men to be led on against the 
" rebels," and, therefore, though he had no magazines, and was en- 
tirely dependent upon irregular supplies for the support of his 
troops, he determined to act solely on the defensive, in the hope of 
assistance from Government. Drayton in the meantime afraid to 
attack them, tried every means in his power to induce the loyalists 
to disperse. He wrote letters, calculated to misleatl, for the pur- 
pose of their being intercepted, and issued proclamations in which 
he was lavish of his promises in case of submission, and fierce in 
his denunciations in case of resistance. On the 16th a meeting 
took place between Drayton, Fletchall, and some of the other lead- 
ers on both sides, who had full powers to conclude terms of pacifi- 
cation. A treaty was accordingly made and signed by Drayton, 
Fletchall, Ford, Greene, Wofford, McLaurin and Thompson, with 
Kershaw and Salvador as witnesses, in which the signers agreed, 
" that if any of those who should bind themselves by it, should 
hereafter by discourse or words, reflect '.upon, censure or condemn 
the proceedings of the Colony, or the Congress, or the Council of 



628 THE CUNNINGHAMS 

Safety, or the General Committee, they should be delivered up to the 
authority of Congress," as the x\ssembly of Charleston now de- 
nominated themselves, within fourteen days after requisition, to be 
proceeded against at pleasure,"and " that all persons who shall not 
consider themselves bound by this treaty must abide the consequen- 
ces." These terms are said to have given satisfaction to neither 
party. Robert Cunningham declared he would bebound by no such 
treaty, and after the camp had broken up and dispersed, he remained 
on the field with sixty of his followers. Finally he was obliged to 
yield to the necessity of the case, and retired, adhering to his resolu- 
tion of not being bound by the treaty. Thus, deserted by Fletchall 
and all but about sixty adherents, in the middle of a hostile country, 
with a prison, or perhaps a halter before his eyes, for he well knew 
into what merciless hands he was likely to fall, did Robert Cunning- 
ham boldly declare his hostility to the popular party, and his con- 
tempt for the proposed terms of pacification. 

Five days after the treaty was made, Drayton wrote him a let- 
ter asking his sentiments with regard to it — and with the intention, 
as he states to Congress, of arresting him in case he should reply 
that he did not consider himself as bound by it. Cunningham's 
answer is as follows : 

"Sir, — This day I received your letter dated the 21st of last 
month, desiring to know whether I considered myself as bound by 
the peace you made with Col. Fletchall and the other gentlemen 
from our camp. I think, sir, at this time the question is rather un- 
fair ; however, as it always was my determination not to deceive 
either party, I must confess I do not hold with that peace. At the 
same time I am as fond of peace as any man, but upon honorable 
terms. According to my principles that peace is false and disgrace- 
ful, from beginning to end. It appears to me, sir, you had all the 
bargain-making to yourself, and if that was the case I expected you 
would have acted with more honor than taken advantage of men, 
(as I believe) half scared out of their senses at the sight of liberty 
caps, and sound of cannon, as seeing and hearing has generally 
more influence with some men than reason, 
" I am, Sir, your most obedient servant, 

" R. CUNNINGHAM. 
« Page's Creek, Oct. 6th, 1775." 



OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 629 

This instant decision, and bold expression of the opinion that 
Drayton had taken dishonorable advantage of the fears of the loy- 
alists, shows the independent 'and fearless character of his mind. 
On the 23d day of the same month, he was arrested at night, in his 
own house, by a party sent by Major Williamson, for that purpose, 
under the pretence of " seditious words," on the affidavit of John 
Caldwell. He was carried prisoner by a military party to 
Charleston, and brought before Congress. 

*He there acknowledged at once the truth of the contents of the 
affidavit, but stated in explanation that these opinions had not been 
volunteered ; but only given in answer to questions asked him by 
Caldwell, whom at the time he had no reason to consider as a 
spy upon his words or actions to repeat them unfavorably to his 
enemies. He also begged Congress to remember that though he 
did not consider himself as bound by the " treaty," he had behaved 
himself quietly and peaceably ever since, taking no part in the 
contest either way. 

Caldwell's motives in perpetrating this social treason, were, it 
is supposed, merely those of selfishness and ambition. Patriotism 
is out of the question, and it is not alleged that he had any private 
pique or ill will to gratify. But Drayton had the power to ad- 
vance him, and to ruin Cunningham was well known to be a favorite 
object of that individual. After a long examination, Congress 
committed their prisoner to gaol, and the Sheriff, Thomas Grimball, 
was desired to affiard him every reasonable accommodation, suited 
to his rank in the upper country, but not to permit him to converse 
or correspond with any person whatever, or to have the use of pen, 
ink, and paper, without the express leave of Congress. 

His arrest caused a great sensation in the country, and Dray- 
ton's memoirs say an immedfate and large expenditure of money 
from the Treasury. 

On hearing the news of his being made prisoner, his brother 
Patrick despatched runners to his neighbors, who rose up in arms 
on the instant, and commenced a pursuit in the hope of overtaking 
the party, and of effecting a rescue. 

Being too late to accomplish this, and hearing that a wagon 
laden with ammunition for the Cherokees was in the vicinity, they 
turned aside in its search, and coming up with it near " Mine Creek," 



630 THE CUNNINGHAMS 

about 18 miles from " Ninety-six" on the 3d day of November, 
they took possession, and found it contained one thousand pounds 
of powder, and lead in proportion. Moultrie asserts there were 
150 men in this enterprise, while Drayton makes the number only 
60. An old man, now alive, recollects they were all collected 
together in one day, which would favor the supposition that the 
latter was the true number, as it would have been very difficult at 
that time, to have obtained more on so short a notice. 

The civil war now fairly commenced. Congress, on the 7th Nov. 
ordered out a numerous body of troops, with instructions "to pursue 
Patrick Cunningham and his party, to apprehend them, to recover 
the ammunition so feloniously nnd contemptuously taken, and, gen- 
erally, to do whatever was necessary to suppress the insurrection, 
and to prevent all future attempts." 

Meanwhile, Major Williamson of " Ninety-six," went with a 
party in pursuit, but on their turning on him he was obliged to re- 
tire. He therefore encamped nearly a fortnight at Ninety-six, 
waiting for recruits, and the reinforcements ordered* out by Congress. 
The loyalists during this interval, (by no means idle,) were 
much aided by Capt. Richard Pearis, who had lately joined them. 
At first, Williamson did not believe they would dare attack him, but 
receiving information on the I8th that they were actually crossing 
the Saluda, at the Island ford, he called a council of war, which 
decided upon retiring to the cleared ground of Savage's plantation, 
separated from Ninety-six and the gaol, by a spring and ravine, a 
position favorable for receiving reinforcements and for erecting 
breastworks, to enable them to use their swivels to advantage. 
Hardly had they completed their " stockade fort," when the loyal- 
ists appeared in force, on the 19th, and by taking possession of the 
court-house and gaol, completely invested them. A conference 
between the leaders took place, in which the loyalists demanded a 
surrender of their opponents' arms, and an immediate dispersion of 
their forces. 

Before any terms were agreed upon, however, fighting com- 
menced outside. The meeting suddenly broke up, and active hos- 
tilities began, which lasted two days and a half. The'^conference was 
renewed on the morning of the 22d, when Williamson, Mayson, 
Pickens, and Bowie, of the one party,' met Robinson, Cunningham, 



OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 63 1 

McLaurin, and Pearis of the other. A solemn treaty was then en- 
tered into, by which it was agreed that all hostilities should imme- 
diately cease, that the garrison should march out of the fort, and 
that the public differences should be submitted to Lord William 
Campbell on the part of the loyalists, and to the Council of Safety 
on the part of the Whigs. That twenty days should be allowed 
for the return of the messengers to be despatched by the parties 
that the persons of these messengers should be held, as is usual 
sacred, and that they should meet with no hinderance from either 
party in the execution of their missions, that the loyalists should 
retire across the Saluda, that none of the other party should be 
molested in returning home, that any reinforcements that might 
arrive should be equally bound by this truce, that all prisoners on 
either side should be set at liberty, that the fortifications which had 
been erected should be levelled, and the well which had been dug 
filled up. 

The Council of Safety having met at Charleston on the 30th, 
Floyd, the messenger of the loyalists, presented himself before them 
to request permission to go on board of the vessel of war where 
Lord William Campbell had taken refuge, that he might confer 
with him, in accordance with the terms of the truce which had been 
concluded. The Council refused to allow him to proceed alone 
and sent on board along with him a person called by them a " pur- 
veyor" who was directed to be present at the interview. When 
they got on board of the ship of war, Lord William of course 
refused to admit the " purveyor." He, therefore, immediately re- 
turned to the Council, who, forthwith, issued an order for the arrest 
of Floyd the moment he landed, which was accordingly done. 

The whole of this proceeding, from first to last, displays a want 
of liberality, and even of good faith, which one would hardly have 
expected to meet with from an assemblage of the lowest rabble; 
but when we consider that the Council was composed of the 
*' stars" of the state, we are shocked to think that any posture of 
aflfairs, however critical, should have had the power so entirely to 
obliterate from the mind of such a body of men, every sentiment 
of equity and fairness. But this was not all, for, taking advantage 
of the 20 days' truce, the provisions of which they had already so 
unjustifiably violated, they sent Col. Richardson with 1500 men, 



632 THE CUNNINGHAMS 

to take possession of the country, which the loyalists, by disbanding, 
in full reliance on the honor of their opponents, had left in an un- 
protected state. He encamped in the Dutch Fork, fifteen miles 
from Saluda, and took a number of prisoners. Here he was joined 
by various bodies of militia, till his army amounted to 2500 effective 
troops, with which he went out against the loyalists, who, taken 
unawares, had not assembled in greater force than 400 men. 
These retreated slowly towards the territory of the Cherokees, and 
Col. Richardson issued a proclamation demanding" the delivery of 
the bodies of the principal offenders, Cunningham, O'Neal, Brown, 
Reese, Howard, and Greene, together with the arms and ammuni- 
tion of all the aiders and abettors of those robbers, murderers, and 
disturbers of the peace, within the space of five days," and, in case 
of neglect," he said " he would take such steps as he thought the 
public good required." The proclamation ended by offering pro 
lection to all except capital ^offenders, if they would lay down 
their arms, and preserve the strictest neutrality. Many in conse- 
quence laid down their arms, but no leaders were surrendered. 

Richardton's army had now increased to between four and five 
thousand, which advanced slowly in pursuit of the four hundred 
loyalists who retreated before them. Drayton, in his Memoirs, ridi- 
cules this retreat, as being the effect, in his opinion, of " cowardice 
and guilty consciences." He is seemingly wholly unaware that 
the orderly and well conducted retreat of a body of men in the face 
of an enemy of more than ten times their number, has ever been 
held among the most brilliant achievements of military tactics. 

Notwithstanding all their care, however, the loyalists, now re- 
duced to a band of 230 men, were on the morning of the 22d Dec. 
overtaken and surprised ^by Col. Thompson, who had been sent 
by Richardson during the preceding night wnth 1300 cavalry and 
infantry. Five or six men were killed, and 130 prisoners taken. 
Cunningham had only time to mount his unsaddled horse, and bid 
" all shift for themselves" in such an emergency. Owing to the 
fleetness of his horse he escaped, but all the stores and ammunition 
fell into the hands of the victors. Most of the captured gunpowder 
was recovered, and delivered to the Indian Agent to be forwarded 
to the Cherokees. The weather was exceedingly inclement. 
Snow fell seven days in succession, so that this has been styled 



OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 633 

ever since, the " Snow Campaign." Thus terminated the first de- 
cided outbreak of the civil war, originating, as we have seen, in the 
unjustifiable arrest and imprisonment of Robert Cunningham, to 
whom we now return. 

We left him, our readers may recollect, in Nov, 1775, in prison 
at Charleston. There he was destined to remain till the ensuing 
July, when, the English having been expelled from the country, 
the Council of Safety, deeming it prudent to try the effect of con- 
ciliatory measures, released him and the other state prisoners, with- 
out any conditions whatever as to their after conduct. It is, howev- 
er, evident that this lenity was the effect of an overweening confi- 
dence in the success of their arms, rather than of any liberality of 
sentiment, as Cunningham had some time previously applied to 
the Council for his liberation in vain, though he was willing to have 
bound himself to preserve the strictest neutrality. The British had 
been repelled, and, as was prematurely supposed, expelled the 
country forever, and the Council doubtless imagined that this suc- 
cess, together with a great display of liberality on their part, would 
have no slight effect on the opinions and after conduct of the pris- 
oners. And they were right in so supposing, but the selfishness of 
party spirit in most cases counteracted their policy, and checked 
the feeling of unanimity which it was calculated to produce. This 
was fully evinced in the case of Robert Cunningham, who, as soon 
as he was released, being desirous of showing his sense of the hb- 
erality of the Council in setting him free without conditions, repair- 
ed immediately to the bead-quarters of an army under the com- 
mand of General Williamson, which had been collected to repel a 
threatened invasion of the Indians, and offered his services as a 
volunteer. In warring against the savage, the common enemy of 
civilized man, who in his barbarity spares neither age nor sex, he 
felt he could meet his countrymen on common ground. The army 
however, thought differently, and to prevent a mutiny in the camp, 
Williamson was obliged to decline his proffered services. The 
officers, thinking that a man of Cunningham's stamp was not 
likely to remain long in a subordinate station, and holding, we 
presume, that the spoils of victory, in the shape of commissions and 
lucrative appointments, belonged of right to themselves alone, as 
victors in the civil struggle which had just taken place, could not 

78 



634 THE CUNNINGHAMS 

understand his desire to join Ihem from conscientious and disinter- 
ested motives, and were so violent in their opposition to him, as to 
prevent Williamson from even receiving him at head-quarters. 

After this time, till the year 17S0, no public mention is made 
of any of the Cunninghams. They had all removed to the city of 
Charleston, where they lived quietly attending to their private 
affairs. 

In the spring of 1780 Charleston capitulated to Clinton, and 
nearly the whole of South Carolina returned to their allegiance. In 
December of this year Patrick Cunningham was made Colonel of 
the Little River Regiment, and seems to have had superintendence 
over some of the confiscated estates. Robert was made a Brigadier 
General in the British service, and sent to command a fort about 
seventeen miles from "Ninety-six," called Williams's Fort, with a 
garrison of 150 men. After the surprise and slaughter at Ham- 
mond's store, which was about thirty miles distant, many of the 
fugitives arrived on the evening of the same day at Fort Williams 
on their way to " Ninety-six," the stronghold of the British in the 
country. They reported that Washington was at Hammond's 
store, having a large force under him, with which he intended to 
march directly on " Ninety-six," taking Fort Williams on his 
way. These reports w^ere confirmed by many arrivals of wounded 
men and stragglers during the night, and General Cunningham de- 
termined to retreat upon " Ninety-six," so as to increase the force 
of the garrison, whilst there was yet time to carry off as much arms 
and ammunition as each man could bear, rather than by a fruitless 
opposition to an overwhelming force, not only lose all his military 
stores, but cause also a useless sacrifice of human life. They ac- 
cordingly marched the next morning, leaving only a few men to take 
care of such of the sick and wounded as were unable to go with them. 
This movement, dictated alike by military policy and sound com- 
mon sense, has been stigmatized in the partisan histories of the 
period as a disgraceful flight, and a great many fanciful versions 
of it have been recorded. The above account is taken down from 
the mouth of a Whig revolutionary soldier still alive, who, though 
belonging to the opposite party, had entered from policy the British 
ranks, and was with General Cunningham at the time. This is 
'Undoubtedly the true one, and the fertility of invention that has 



OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 635 

been displayed in distorting it, shows not only how prone the hu- 
man mind is to believe any story, however improbable, that is dis- 
creditable to an adversary, but also how prompt the partisan histo- 
rian is to pander to its credulity. 

In July, 1781, when Lord Rawdon returned to " Ninety-six," 
from a short pursuit of General Greene, whom he had forced tem- 
porarily to retreat, he called the chief of the loyalists together, ex- 
plained to them the necessity of abandoning the district, and advised 
them all to retreat within lines w^hich the British troops were able 
to maintain. Every preparation was accordingly made by Colonel 
Cruger for immediate departure. Half of all the British force was 
left with him to cover their retreat, which was commenced on the 
Sth of July. All would then have left, but for a letter addressed to 
them by General Greene, in which, declaring himself their protec- 
tor, he promised all who should remain his favour and support. 

Relying on these assurances some were induced to remain, but 
soon had cause bitterly to regret their determination. According 
even to the Whig historian, Sims, " they became the objects of a 
sanguinary warfare, carried on with a ferocity commensurate with 
the forbearance which the Revolutionists had so long shown from 
necessity, and to that hatred which was not unnaturally the conse- 
quence of their adverse principles." It would be in the highest 
degree unjust to impute bad faith to General Greene in this matter, 
but it was impossible for him to restrain his subordinates, and to 
guard against these excesses. But no sooner did he hear of them 
than General Sumpter was despatched to restore order and to 
capture the ringleaders ; in the meantime much mischief had been 
done, and many cruel and disgraceful outrages perpetrated. 

In November General Cunningham was sent with 700 men into 
the neighborhood of Orangeburg, where he encountered General 
Sumpter's brigade of equal force. The latter was obliged to fall 
back, and met with some loss in consequence of one of his officers 
having allowed himself to be drawn into an ambuscade; he con- 
tinued, however, to act as a check on Cunningham's further ad- 
vance into the coimtry. That General Sumpter, the " Game Cock 
of the South," who, from the eulogies passed on him by the his- 
torians of the day, one is led to conclude would have preferred al- 
ways to encounter double his own force, should have been content- 



636 THE CUNNINGHAMS 

ed to act as a check merely on General Cunningham, with a force 
not larger than his own, incontestably disproves all the aspersions 
that have been cast with no sparing hand by these same historians 
on the courage and military skill of the latter. And though Sims, 
in his account of the capture of Colonel Mayhem, would attribute 
the humanity and generosity with which that officer was tieated, 
to the absence of General Cunningham, his character for the pos- 
session of these virtues can with as httle justice be impugned. 
There is no doubt but that Mr. Robins, the officer who by a boldly 
executed act of intrepidity captured Colonel JMayhem, acted strictly 
in accordance with General Cunningham's instructions, when he 
admitted him to his parole. And we do not believe that there is 
one iota of evidence to prove that, during his whole life General 
Cunningham ever committed a single act unbecoming the character 
of an officer and a gentleman. 

Thus terminates the history of this branch of the Cunninghams, 
as far as it is connected with the war of the revolution, but it may 
perhaps be of some little interest shortly to trace the after fates of 
the four brothers and their families down to the present time, before 
proceeding to give the adventures of Major William Cunningham, 
a Tory partisan of no ordinary note, a second cousin of the preceding, 
and whose deeds of daring retaliation for injuries received at the 
hands of the Whigs, have filled the whole of South Carolina with 
the fame of his exploits. 

At the termination of the w^ar General Cunningham and his 
brother, conscious of their irreproachable conduct throughout the 
whole of it, were induced by the proclamations of General Greene, 
and the Governor to present a petition to be allowed to remain. 
But he and Patrick were rejected. The two youngest were per- 
mitted to remain. 

General Cunningham first went to Florida, and afterwards to 
Nassau, N. P., where he built a handsome residence. The English 
Government desired'him to send in a statement of his loss by the 
confiscation of his estates in South Carolina, and liberally paid him 
four times the amount, besides allowing him the half pay of a Bri- 
gadier General for the rest of his life. He afterwards went to 
England, was presented at Court, and received with much distinc- 
tion. He died in 1813, at the age of 74, leaving a widows who 



OF SOUTH CAROLINA. \ 637 

survived him only two years, and a son, Charles, his only remaining 
child, who had previously married and settled in Jefferson county, 
Georgia, where he died in 1817, leaving three small children, two 
of whom, a son and a daughter, are still living. 

Patrick Cunningham, the second brother, went to Florida at the 
same time with the General, and remained there for two years, em- 
ploying the negroes he took with him from Charleston in cutting 
down live oak for the English. These negroes had been purchased 
by him during the four years he resided in Charleston, in anticipa- 
tion of the confiscation of his estates, in case the party to which he 
had been opposed should be successful. In January, 1785, at the 
suggestion of his friends in South Carolina, he left Florida, and 
returned to Charleston, where on the 13th of March he presented a 
second petition to the Governor, which was backed by all the in- 
fluential gentlemen, his former neighbors, of the upper country. 
His sentence of banishment and confiscation was in consequence 
repealed, and instead he was amerced 12 per cent., and disqualified 
from voting or performing any other acts of citizenship for seven 
years. Before these seven years had quite passed away he was 
elected to the state legislature, where he served for two terms and 
an extra session. The jealousy of the members from the lower 
country, particularly directed against him as a Cunningham, and 
shown most palpably in their efforts to keep him in the background, 
by pointedly passing him over in all committees, &c., so disgusted 
him with its paltriness, that he peremptorily refused to yield to the 
earnest entreaties of his constituents to allow himself to be again 
put forward. Some time in 1793 he was appointed surveyor of the 
district. In 1794 he lost his only daughter, Pamela, by her clothes 
accidentally catching fire, and from that day " a change passed o'er 
his spirit." His health gradually gave way, and he was carried off 
in a few months at the age of fifty-four, leaving a widow and three 
sons. The second son, William, a young man of most excellent 
promise, was soon after cut off at the early age of twenty-two, by 
an attack of pleuritis. Mrs. Cunningham did not long survive 
their loss. She died in 1796. Two sons were now all that re- 
mained ; John, the eldest, who never married, and died in the year 
1819; and Robert, the present representative of the family, who, 
with his wife, the daughter of Colonel Bird, of Georgia, formerly 



63S 



THE CUNNINGHAMS 



of the District of Columbia, and his son and daughter, now reside 
on the family estates in South Carolina. 

John Cunningham, the third brother, not having taken any active 
part in the war, further than to fill the office of Commissary to the 
British army during his residence in Charleston, was, as we have 
already recorded, permitted to remain theie. He afterwards became 
a merchant, and dying at a good old age, left his youngest and only 
surviving son, Richard, a fortune of $640,000. He, an easy tem- 
pered man, of no business habits, intrusted the whole management 
of his affairs to others, and died at the age of fifty-nine, leaving a 
young family of five children, with only a very moderate fortune 
for their support out of the whole of this large sum. 

David Cunningham, the youngest brother, who had also acted in 
no more hostile capacity than Commissary to the army in Charleston, 
and was likewise permitted to remain, returned to district " Ninety- 
six," where he became a planter, and was again appointed sur- 
veyor. He died early, leaving a son and daughter. 



MAJOR WILLIAM CUNNINGHAM, OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 

William Cunningham was the third and youngest son of a cousin 
of those Cunninghams, of some of the features of whose lives, in 
connection with the revolutionary war, we have given the preced- 
ing short sketch. This family having removed from Virginia at 
the same time with the other, had settled also in district " Ninety- 
six." In 1775, William was a young man of nineteen years of 
age; his political opinions leaned to the Whig side, and, being a 
great favorite with the young men of the district of his own age, 
he exercised considerable influence over them. On this account, he 
was applied to by John Caldwell, to assist him in raising one of 
the companies of armed volunteers, embodied under the authority 
of Congress, for the alleged purpose of keeping the peace, and of 
preventing the Tories from creating a disturbance. To induce him 
to do so, Caldwell agreed that, if they succeeded in raising the full 
complement of men, Cunningham should be made first lieutenant, 
and should have a right to retire from the company, in case they 
should be sent to the lower country, or ordered on any other ser- 



OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 639 

vice than that specified by Congress. The company was accord- 
ingly raised, and was engaged at the taking of Fort Charlotte, on 
the Savannah river. In the course of time, they were ordered down 
to Charleston, and Cunningham consented to go down with them 
on the express condition that he should be permitteil lo resign as 
soon as they reached their destination. They were encamped near 
the city for about a week, and were then ordered either to John's 
or James's island. Cunningham immediately tendered his resigna- 
tion, which, to his surprise, Caldwell refused to accept. Remind- 
ing him of their solemn agreement, Cunningham swore he should 
abide by it, and that if he were taken over to the island, it should 
only be as a corpse. One half of the company who had joined 
through Cunningham's influence, showed a strong spirit of mutiny 
and insubordination, as soon as they heard of the altercation that 
had taken place ; and, at last, to prevent immediate desertion, Cun- 
ningham consented to go over, on the renewed condition, that his 
resignation should be accepted as soon as they should reach the 
island. No sooner had they landed than Caldwell, thinking to 
strike terror into his men, and thereby have them more under con- 
trol, had him arrested, put in irons, and tried by court martial on 
a charge of mutiny. The result of this vshameless and ungrateful 
act of perfidy was, contrary to Caldwell's expectations, that Cun- 
ningham was not only acquitted, but by a decision of the same 
court, freed from his military engagement, on the ground of condi- 
tional agreement; and Caldwell became an object of hatred and 
contempt to a set of men, to whom the unsettled state of the coun- 
try afterwards afforded ample opportunity of satisfying their re- 
sentments, and avenging their private wrongs. Cunningham him- 
self was satisfied with treating him with personal indignity and 
contempt, but the others were, as we shall hereafter have occasion 
to relate, not content with so bloodless a retaliation. Cunnino-hara 
having returned to the upper country, still adhered to the Whigs, 
and was with General Williamson in his campaign against the 
Cherokees, in the autumn of 1776, After this exjiedition was over, 
he declared that, having seen reason to change his opinions, he 
was determined to continue no lon^jer in the service of the Whio-s. 
No sooner had he made this declaration, than a system of perse- 
cution was commenced against him by those from whose association 



640 THE CUNNINGHAMS 

he had retired, which ended in turning into gall and bitterness all 
the natural good humor of his heart, and speedily changed a kind 
and affectionate tempered man into a vengeful and unsparing par- 
tisan. He was hunted more like a wild beast than a man, and his 
only secure place of rest was in the deepest recess of some all but 
impenetrable forest. He dared not visit any of his family, except 
by stealth, and under the cloud of night, lest he should bring down 
upon them also the lawless vengeance of his persecutors, for hold- 
ing communication with one whom the Whigs placed under the ban 
of their displeasure. Thus he lived, sleeping on the ground in the 
open air, not venturing undercover even for the night, and endurino- 
hardship and privation of every kind, rather than act with those 
from whom he had, on due deliberation, conscientiously seceded. 
A proud and high-spirited temper was not, however, likely to stand 
this usage very long, and an act of atrocity, of which his brother, 
John Cunningham, was the victim, brought matters to a crisis, and 
caused his long smothered indignation to break forth into open hos- 
tility, and to display itself in the most daring acts of retaliation 
against his enemies. 

One of the Whig Captains, William Ritchie, Avho had been in 
Caldwell's company, and whose farm matched with that on which 
Cunningham's brother Andrew and his family lived, had been con- 
spicuously active in searching for him with the view to capture him, 
dead or alive. On Cunningham's sending him word that he had 
better desist, he replied that so far from desisting, " he intended to 
shoot him down the first sight he got of him, and would follow him, 
if necessary, to the very gates of hell." 

On hearing this reply, Cunningham's first impulse was to take 
Ritchie boldly to task for it, but he was persuaded by his brother 
Andrew and his cousin Patrick not to notice it ; and as the country 
was at the time entirely under the control of his enemies, he was 
induced to retire from the neighborhood for awhile, until affairs 
should assume a more favorable aspect. Accordingly, in the be- 
ginning of 1778 he left for Savannah, where the British force then 
was. Ritchie, ignorant of his departure, continued his search, and 
exasperated at his want of success, determined to wreak his ven- 
geance on some otiier of the family. John Cunningham, a brother 
ofW^illiara, seemed a fit object. He had been not only entirely 



OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 64 1 

lame from his birth, but was subject to fits of an epileptic character. 
Him Ritchie had drafted to serve in the militia, and when of course 
he did not appear, Ritchie with two men of the name of Moore and 
Cook, and some others, went to his house to carry him. Exasper- 
ated by such treatment, he abused them in no measured terms, and 
they, declaring they would whip him into silence, actually took 
this maimed and helpless being, and whipped him by turns until he 
expired under their lashes. As soon as the news of this cold- 
blooded murder reached the ears of William in Savannah, he swore 
he would never rest until he had avenged it in Ritchie's heart's 
blood. Not being able to procure a horse, he set out immediately 
on foot, attended only by one servant, and walked all the way from 
Savannah to " Ninety-six." Shortly before his arrival, Ritchie, still 
in search of him, and not content with having murdered his brother, 
entered his father's house. The old man was sick in bed, and, 
notwithstanding his solemn protestations that he knew nothing of 
the movements of his son, dragged him over the floor by the hair, 
and kicked and cuffed him till he was tired. As soon as Cunning- 
ham arrived, and heard of this additional outrage, he went to 
Ritchie's house, and found him in the yard with seven or eight of 
his followers. On seeing Cunningham, Ritchie, conscious of his 
misdeeds, and the fearful retribution that awaited him, clasped his 
hands together, and exclaimed to one of his companions, " Lord 
have mercy on me, Hughes, for yonder is Cunningham, and I am a 
dead man." He tried to escape over the fence, but Cunningham 
shot him down, wounding him mortally — and coming close up to 
him, told him he " had come all the way from Savannah on foot 
to kill him, on account of the crimes he had committed against his 
family." 

From this period till the end of the war, Major Cunningham's life 
was passed in a series of wild adventures, so often ending in such 
fearful tragedies, as to earn for him, throughout the country, the sig- 
nificant cogomen of "Bloody Bill," and in the story of his exploits 
his famous horse " Ringtail " attained a celebrity hardly less dis- 
tinguished than his owner's. Ringtail, so called from a white 
rin^ round his tail, was a thorough-bred horse, reared by Patrick 
Cunningham, and presented by him to his cousin when the security 
of the latter's life depended so much on the celerity of his motions. 



642 THE CUNNINGHAMS 

The feats of strength and speed recorded of Ringtail were such as 
to throw an additional air of mystery and awe over the deeds of 
terror perpetrated by his master. 

A Captain Samuel Moore, the same who was with Ritchie 
when John Cunningham was murdered, commanded a party of 
twenty n:ien, with which he went in search of William, to kill or 
apprehend him. In the course of his search, he had entered the 
house of Andrew Cunningham, in his absence, had used the most 
abusive language towards his wife, had destroyed a great part of 
the furniture, and finished by eating as much of the food that had 
been cooked for the family, as was required by himself and his 
men, and throwing the remainder to their dogs. He had scarcely 
left the house before William and Andrew Cunningham arrived, 
and the former, seeing the devastation that had been committed, 
immediately set out, accompanied by two men, in pursuit of Moore 
and his party. He tracked them the whole of that day, and sleep- 
ing in the woods at night, continued the pursuit next morning. 
When he had got to the foot of a long hill, full of gullies, since 
called Anglin's Hill, one of the men, seeing Moore's party at the 
top, fired a gun. At the noise of the report, Moore turned round, 
and seeing Cunningham, he immediately put spurs to his horse, 
then considered the fleetest in the country, to escape. Having so 
great a start as a hill full of gullies, and about a quarter of a mile in 
length, he must have done so but for the unrivalled speed and bot- 
tom of Ringtail. After a run of about a mile and a half, during 
which Moore, in his agony, had thrown away his sword and pis- 
tols, and every thing that he could get rid of to lessen his weight, 
Cunningham overtook him, and, after a few words of taunting con- 
tempt, cut him down with his sword. Strange to say, none of 
Moore's party stayed to make the slightest defence, but, as if 
seized with a sudden panic, they all made off in different directions. 
This chase first brought forth Ringtail's great powers of strength 
and speed — but very many were the occasions afterwards, on which 
Major Cunningham was indebted entirely to his horse for his safety. 
He taught him to give a sudden jerk with his head whenever he 
saw or heard any one approaching ; and by tying the bridle round 
his arm, he was thus able to go to sleep in tolerable security, cer- 
tain of being awaked by the vigilance of his horse long before any 



OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 643 

one could approach near enough to surprise him, Sometimes, 
however, when resting in the woods, a party in pursuit has been 
able to get quite close to him in consequence of his horse's view 
being obstructed by the trees and brushwood. As soon, however, as 
Ringtail could hear the crushing of the leaves or branches, or see any 
thing moving, a sudden jerk of the bridle gave instant warning to his 
master, who, throwing himself on his back, often only half awake, 
would gallop off to a secure distance before his enemies had recov- 
ered from the surprise the sudden movement had caused. On one 
occasion, particularly, when he had been obliged to swim the Sa- 
luda river, he had taken off his clothes, and spread them out to dry, 
while he took a short nap. At this moment, a Col. Warton, with 
a party of men, came close upon him, and were deliberating whe- 
ther they should shoot him as he lay asleep, or endeavor to take 
him alive, when Ringtail, hearing a rustling of the leaves, gave 
the accustomed warning to his master, who, jumping on his back, 
half asleep, made his escape in his shirt and drawers, leaving all 
his clothes and arms behind him. 

After the capitulation of Charleston, a great many Whigs re- 
newed their oaths of allegiance to the king, and yet when success 
appeared to favor the Whig cause, they reassumed arms against 
the British. Cornwallis issued orders that all such, when taken, 
should be put to death as rebels, who had forfeited their lives by 
breaking the oaths of fealty they had so short a time previously 
taken. Major Cunningham, then an officer in the British service, 
was one of those who received these orders, and who executed them 
rigorously on all such offenders as fell into his power. Away 
with the sickly sentimentality that would say that he did wrong in 
so doing. He would have been wholly unfit for his profession as a 
soldier had he swerved from the performance of his duty on these 
painful occasions. But not even his greatest enemies have ever 
alleged that, stern as he was, he was at any time guilty of what 
was but too common in those times, harshness or cruelty towards 
women or children. On the contrary, he has on many occasions 
interfered to protect them at great personal risk, and often at con- 
siderable expense to himself. 

After the retreat of the loyalists from " Ninety-six," in July, 
1781, those who had been induced by General Greene's proclama- 



644 THE CUNNINGHAMS 

tions to remain, were treated with the greatest barbarity. Among 
the Whigs who distinguished themselves by their cruelties towards 
these helpless Tories, were a Col. Hays and a Mr. Turner. Com- 
plaints having been made to Major Cunningham of injuries com- 
mitted by these men against the innocent wives and children of 
some of the soldiers of his corps, who had adhered to him in every 
danger, he did not hesitate to leave the English camp at Charleston, 
and to pass into district " Ninety-six," with a party of not exceeding 
one hundred and fifty men, for the purpose of inflicting punishment 
on those against whose inhumanity neither age nor sex had afford- 
ed any protection. Both Turner and Hays occupied military " sta- 
tions." Turner's was the first encountered. It was taken, and the 
men put to death. On their way to Hays's " station," some of the 
men, led on by one " Elmore," seizing the opportunity of Cunning- 
ham's being at a considerable distance behind, proceeded to Cap- 
tain Caldwell's house, and finding him at home, they killed him, 
and burned the house. When Cunningham came up, he regretted 
what his men had done, but it seems doubtful whether, even had 
he been present, he could have restrained them, bearing as they did, 
such determined hatred towards their victim. The party then pro- 
ceeded on their way to Hays's station. Col. Hays had been warned 
of his danger the night before by a Capt. Brooks, who sent an ex- 
press advising him to disband his men, and leave the ground in- 
stantly, as Cunningham was in the country — had taken Turner's 
station, and killed nineteen men. Hays, distrusting this informa- 
tion, as he had just returned from scouring that part of the country, 
and had heard nothing of Cunningham, did not think fit to follow 
the advice, but merely sent off to another station for assistance in 
case of need. 

It was on a fine morning towards the end of November, when, 
at 10 o'clock, the party of loyalists, led on by Capt. John Hood, 
rode up to the station at full gallop. This Hood was a very daring 
fellow. He went close to the piazza in front of the house, and 
called out in a loud voice, that " none should fire from within, or 
they should all be put to death." Those within, disregarding this 
warning, fired through the openings, and killed one man. Major 
Cunningham arriving shortly afterwards, sent a flag of truce with 
a written message, demanding " instant surrender," and promising, 



OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 645 

if they did so, " to spare all their lives," but declaring at the same 
time, that " if they should resist, and so cause the spilling of his 
men's blood, he would give them no quarter, but put them all to 
death." Col. Hays, trusting to receive a reinforcement before the 
station could be carried, refused to surrender, and answered " he 
should hold out to the last, at the risk of the lives of his whole par- 
ty." After some shooting on both sides, Cunningham succeeded in 
setting fire to the "station " which was of wood, by means of a 
ramrod wrapped round with tow, dipped in pitch, and thrown in a 
blazing state on the roof. Half suffocated, Hays and his party 
at length surrendered at discretion. Cunningham immediately 
hanged Hays and another man called Daniel Williams on the pole 
of a fodder-stock — the former for his cruelty to women and chil- 
dren, and the latter for having murdered in cold blood his favorite 
follower, Thomas Ellison, whose death he had sworn to avenge. 
Before they were dead, the pole broke, and Cunningham, drawing 
his sword, slew them both with his own hand. Being told that 
Cook, the man who, with Ritchie and Moore, had whipped his 
brother to death, was among the prisoners, he ordered him cut 
from the rest, and slew him with his sword. 

He then gave permission to his men to do as they pleased with 
the rest. All who had rendered themselves obnoxious by acts of 
cruelty and plunder, were slain without mercy. The others were 
saved. Each of Cunningham's men singled out whomsoever 
among the prisoners had been guilty of murdering any of his rela- 
tives, and killed him forthwith. The execution took place about 
sunset, and doubtless the circumstance of having been kept, by the 
obstinacy of the defence, before this station, for a whole day, in the 
midst of a hostile country, had added nothing to the amiability of 
Cunningham and his band, and may have been the cause why jus- 
tice on this occasion seems to have been so little tempered with 
mercy. At the affair of Turner's station, there was no surrender 
made, nor quarter asked, and of course such a party as Cun- 
ningham's could not burthen themselves with prisoners. At the 
time they were attacked, the people of that station were busy cut- 
ting up some beeves of which they had just plundered the Tories. 
To conceal their occupation, they had fastened up blankets before 
the windows. The call for vengeance upon these marauders which 



646 THE CUNiNlNGHAMS 

had reached Cunningham, and his followers in Charleston, received 
an additional impulse from learning their present employment. 
The house was surrounded, and the inmates cut down as they at- 
tempted to fly. Only one man escaped the general massacre. 
Seven were saved at Hays's station, and were next morning set 
free without terms or conditions. It has been asserted that Turner 
and his men made a formal surrender on the condition of being 
treated as prisoners of war. But this was not the case ; and the 
above account of what happened at both stations, is scrupulously 
correct. 

On their way back to Charleston, the party encountered one 
" Oliver Toles," famous for stealing Tory cattle. As a species of 
poetical justice, Cunningham had him hanged with a thong cut 
from a Tory cow's hide. 

By this time the country had become fully alarmed. Parties 
under Pickens, Leroy Hammond, &e., commenced a vigorous pur- 
suit, and before they arrived at Charleston Ringtail's mettle was 
well tried. Seven fresh parties started in pursuit of Cunningham, 
one after the other, but Ringtail carried his master safe off from 
the whole of them. 

It was at the expense, however, of his own life, for he died 
twenty-three days after they reached the city, of fatigue, and the 
violent exertions he had been forced to make. Major Cunning- 
ham, " Bloody Bill," " the heartless unfeeling monster," " the cold- 
blooded demon," as in their lying histories they called him, wept 
like a child over his poor favorite and friend, as he was wont to 
term him. He had him buried with all the honors of war — the 
bells of Charleston were tolled and vollies were fired over the hero 
of many fights. 

When the English evacuated Charleston, Major Cunningham, 
instead of embarking with them, chose to proceed to Florida by 
land, accompanied by five of his followers. One day having 
pitched his tent near the region of Greenville, in the fancied secu- 
rity of a deep wood, they laid aside their arms, unsaddled their 
horses, and began to cook and get ready their dinner. In the 
midst of this interesting occupation, they were suddenly interrupted 
by the unwelcome appearance of a Capt. Butler and twenty men 
of the Revolutionary party. Taken thus by surprise, each man 



OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 647 

sprung as he was, without arms, on his iinsaddletl horse, and made 
off as he best could. The tent, arms, ami every thing except them- 
selves, and their bare-backed horses, fell into the hands of the 
gallant Captain and his band. The odds of twenty-one well armed, 
to six unarmed men, was rather too great, even for Bloody Bill ; 
so thinking, in this case, that discretion was decidedly the better 
part of valor, he, and Capt. Hood, who kept close to him, made off 
as fast as their horses' legs could carry them, and were soon beyond 
the reach of danger. 

He arrived safely in Florida, and afterwards went to England 
with Gen. Cunningham. He was presented at Court, and during 
the rest of his life, enjoyed the half pay of a Major in the British 
service. He married a short time before leaving Charleston, but 
had no children. Finally he died of a short illness, in which 
there was, at first, apparently, no danger, bequeathing his young 
and beautiful widow, who had left father and mother and all for 
his sake, to the General's care. 

Such is a faithful, though necessarily a somewhat imperfect 
sketch of the history of the Cunninghams of S. C. during the war 
of the revolution. From an impartial examination of the whole 
we think it will hardly be denied, that, in the beginning, there was 
every disposition on the part of Gen. Cunningham and his brothers, 
to remain neutral. Opposed as they were to the alleged right of 
England to tax the Colonies in any manner without their consent, 
they were equally opposed to the violent measures, and tyrannical 
acts of the House of Assembly. 

Well aware of the difference between rebellion and revolution, 
Ihey were of opinion neither that the conduct of the mother coun- 
try yet justified the Colonies in attempting to throw off their allegi- 
ance, nor that the Colonies themselves were yet in a fit state to 
succeed in any such attempt. No one can doubt their conscien- 
tiously entertaining these opinions, though after events may have 
proved them to be fallacious; and, entertaining them, one can as 
little doubt the patriotism as the prudence, which suggested 
the earnest endeavors on their part to dissuade their fellow-coun- 
trymen from engaging in a struggle, which, instead of terminating 
as it did in the glory of a revolution, they felt convinced would 
result in all the horrors of an unsuccessful rebellion. Their situation 



648 LIEUT. COL. THOMAS BROWNE 

also, as holding offices of high trust and emolument under the exist- 
ing government, was one of peculiar delicacy. Having so lately 
renewed their oaths of allegiance on being invested vvith office, 
they were not the men to think they were entitled to adhere to them 
or not as might best suit their convenience, or to construe any 
thing that had as yet occurred into a violation of the mutual obliga- 
tions implied in the solemn contract, thus reentered into, between 
their sovereign and themselves. They held that the Colonies 
ought, before proceeding to extremities, to have tried, still further, 
the effect of pacific measures ; and above all, they held that it 
was particularly incumbent on a really honest party, whose con- 
stant cry was liberty, equality, and freedom of conscience, to per- 
mit each man to think for himself, and to remain neutral where he 
could not conscientiously cooperate with them. Consequently the 
penal enactment called the " Association Act," when passed by the 
Assembly, was deemed by them to be premature, odious, and ty- 
rannical. Its consequences, as we have seen, first forced them into 
open hostility to the popular cause, and though they continued 
afterwards to side with the loyalists, it must be acknowledged that 
their course during the whole of the war is marked by extreme 
moderation. 

The case was very different with Major William Cunningham. 
He had suffered fearful wrongs, and fearfully did he avenge them. 
Where the law could not reach he took the law into his own 
hands, and it is not for us to measure the amount of guilt he in- 
curred by so doing. 

We cannot doubt, however, that it is to the comprehensiveness, 
as well as to the severity of these acts of retribution, that the name 
of Cunningham owes the distinction of being, even to this day, very 
cordially hated in South Carolina. 

LIEUT. COL. THOMAS BROWNE, OF AUGUSTA, GA. 

" Lt. Col. Henry Lee was certainly a man of strong prejudices, 
but where admiration was excited towards a gallant enemy his 
generosity was unbounded. Fascinated by the consummate skill 
and bravery of Col. Browne in the defence of his post at Augusta, 
his resolution was immediately fixed, to save him from the fury of 



OF AUGUSTA, GEORGIA. 649 

our exasperated population ; and the better to effect it put him un- 
der the safeguard of Capt. Jaraes Armstrong of the cavalry, to con- 
duct him to Savannah. 

" The precaution was the more necessary, as the inveteracy of 
party in the neighborhood of Augusta had given birth to a war of 
extermination, and he saw that without such interposition a gallant 
soldier, who had committed himself to his enemy on their plighted 
faith, would otherwise have been sacrificed. Col. Grierson of the 
loyalist militia had already fallen by an unknown hand ; and to 
have risked a repetition of the crime would have subjected the vic- 
torious commanders to merited censure and reproach. 

" I have often heard the gallant Armstrong declare that he 
never had in his own opinion encountered equal peril with that he 
experienced on this trying occasion. At every turn preparation was 
made for death — in every individual who approached was seen the 
eager wish to destroy. Resentment was excited to the highest 
pitch and called aloud to be appeased by blood. Yet by dint of 
good management, by the gentleness of persuasion, by forcibly 
portraying the duty of humanity to a captured and unresisting foe, 
and occasionally well applied threats, he saved the contemplated 
victim, and delivered him in safety to his friends in Savannah." — 
Garden's Anecdotes, p. 125. 

In page 37 of the same volume he says that " greater skill in 
defence nor more intrepid resistance was never shown than by Col. 
Browne, which cannot but enhance the glory of the commanders 
who compelled him to surrender." 

Lieut. Col. Thomas Browne's Vindication against Atrocities 

CHARGED him IN OUR HiSTORY, 1786. 

Found among Dr. Ramsay^ s papers, transmitted hy his daughters 
to the Historical Department of the Charleston Library. 

Dr. Ramsay : 

Sir — The publication of an extract from your history of the 
Revolution of South Carolina, highly injurious to my reputation as 
an officer and a man of humanity, induces me to address this letter 

to you. 

79 



650 LIEUT. COL. THOMAS BROWNE 

Having professed yourself" an advocate for truth, uninfluenced 
by passion, prejudice or party spirit," you declare that " embracing 
every opportunity of obtaining genuine information, you have as- 
serted nothing but what you believe to be fact." If I am to credit 
these professions, I must believe, Sir, that no party motive would 
tempt you to defame the reputation of an individual or advance the 
reputation of your country at the expense of your own. The scan- 
dalous imputations, therefore, thrown on my humanity, must be im- 
puted to the malignity of some wretch as devoid of honor as of 
truth, who attempts to acquire fame by ruining that of others. 
Conscious of the rectitude of my intentions, although I may have 
erred in judgment, the censure or praise of an unprincipled person, 
who has wilfully misrepresented facts, and wantonly departed from 
truth, ought to be indifferent to me ; yet the duty I owe to the 
officers and men serving under me, and a reverence for the opinion 
of the world, which often judges from caprice or common report, 
prompt me to state to you, an account of the material transactions 
on which these charges are founded, lest my silence might be imputed 
to a consciousness of merited reproach. {See the Preface, page 3.) 

A civil war being one of the greatest evils incident to human 
society, the history of every contest presents i;s witb instances of 
wanton cruelty and barbarity. Men whose passions are inflamed 
by mutual injuries, exasperated with personal animosity against 
each other, and eager to gratify revenge, often violate the laws of 
war and principles of humanity. The American war exhibits 
many dreadful examples of wanton outrages committed by both 
parties, disgraceful to human nature. From the commencement of 
the war, in the limited sphere in which I acted, it was my duty and 
the first wish of my heart, to carry it on agreeable to the rules 
which humanity formed to alleviate its attendant calamities. The 
criminal excesses of individuals were never warranted by authority, 
or ever obtained the sanction of my approbation. 

Could violations of humanity be justified by example, the cruel- 
ties exercised on my person by a lawless committee, in the wanton 
abuse of power, might have justified the severest vengeance; but 
esteeming it more honorable to forgive than revenge an injury, to 
those very men who had treated me with the most merciless cruelty, 
I granted protections and safeguards to such as desired them. In 



OF AUGUSTA, GEORGIA.' 651 

the discharge of the duties of my profession, I can say with truth, I 
never deviated from the line of conduct the laws of war and hu- 
manity prescribe. In your history of the Revolution of South Caro- 
lina, you have been pleased to form a different judgment. 

From what source you have obtained your information relative 
to the circumstances of General Scriven's death, I cannot pretend 
to determine, but give me leave to say, not from " an advocate for 
truth uninfluenced by passion, prejudice or party spirit.'' So ma- 
licious a representation requires a brief detail of the truth. 

The frontier of East Florida being exposed to the incursions of 
the Georgia militia, a party from the districts of Newport and Med- 
way entered the province, plundered and destroyed every house and 
plantation on St. Mary's river, and carried off all the inhabitants 
prisoners, without distinction of age or sex. The garrison of St. 
Augustine being reduced to great difficulties, by an extreme scar- 
city of provisions. General Prevost was under the necessity of de- 
taching Colonel Prevost, with a party of light troops, to collect 
cattle in the settlements of Medway and JYewport. With this de- 
tachment I had the honor of serving. To enable this light corps to 
forage with greater effect and security, a party was ordered by the 
inland navigation, under the command of Colonel Frazer, to present 
itself before Sunbury, to divert the attention of the Americans from 
us to its security. After various skirmishes with the Americans 
near Medway, our spies brought intelligence, that their army, said 
to consist of nine hundred men, under the command of General 
Scriven and Colonel Whyte, was on its march to attack us. Co- 
lonel Frazer ordered me to reconnoitre the position and movements 
of the Americans, and if possible, to harass them on their march. 
The country being full of swamps and difficult passes, I selected 
thirty-two men from the regiment I commanded, to whose spirit 
and activity I could trust. About a mile in front of our camp, the 
ground being particularly favorable to my purpose, an ambuscade 
was formed in a thicket, at a difficult pass, a few paces from the 
high road. After permitting their cavalry to pass, the infantry 
advanced in column, preceded 1 y artillery, and halted close to the 
thicket. General Scriven and Colonel Whyte harangued their 
men to prepare them for action ; after finishing their harangue I 
ordered my party to fire. General Scriven and a Captain Struthers, 



652 LIEUT. COL. THOMAS BROWNE 

fell. The Americans, I presume, mistaking this parly for our whole 
force instantly retreated. The General being grievously wounded 
was treated with tenderness and humanity ; he had the character of 
a brave, worthy man. I sincerely felt for his misfortune, and order- 
ed him to be conveyed to our camp, where every attention was paid 
to him by Colonel Prevost, and every assistance given him by our 
surgeons. ( '^ol. 2, p. 2.) 

With respect to the devastations you complain of, I shall de- 
cline the ungrateful task of justifying the loyalists on St. Mary's 
river retaliating 07i the properly of such of the militia of Aeuport 
and Medway, as had previously destroyed theirs, and dragged their 
families into captivity. I only wish to call to your remembrance, 
the generous invitation of the Governor and Council of Georgia by 
proclamation, " to all the friends of liberty and independence in and 
throughout the United States of America, to come and partake of 
the plunder of East Florida, for which purpose they had nothing to 
do but to repair to the camp in Burke County, where provisions 
and ammunition would be supplied gratis, and from thence march 
under the command of the Governor of the Slate, by whom every 
encouragement would be given, and all captures free plunder." 

The account you have obtained relative to the death and suf- 
ferings of M'Koy and his confederates in Carolina is equally delu- 
sive.* After the reduction of Charleston by Sir Henry Clinton, I 

* Captain M'Koy collected a few bold aJventurers, and took several 
positions on the banks of the Savannah, from which he frequently sallied 
and made prize of boats going up the river with supplies for the garrison 
at Augusta. After some captures of this kind, Colonel Browne detached 
Lieutenant Kemp, with seventy-five regulars and twenty militiamen, to 
attack him. Captain M'Koy engaged them near Matthew's Bluff, killed 
the officer and fifteen privates, and dispersed the remainder. Soon after 
this Colonel Browne marched with a hundred Indians and the greatest 
part of his whole force to drive him from his usual stations. Colonel 
Harden, with some of the adjacent American militia, who had lately re- 
volted from their conquerors, joined M'Koy in this hour of distress 3 but 
their combined force was defeated, and for a little time their followers 
were dispersed. After these advantages the royal conquerors laid waste 
the settlements on ihe banks of the Savannah river for forty miles up and 
down, and for several miles across the country. They stripped the in- 
habitants, both men and women, of their clothes — turned them out of doors 
in the midst of winter — and set fire to their houses. — Vol. 2, p. 237. 



OF AUGUSTA, GEORGIA. GSS 

was detached by Brigadier General Clark to Augusta. On our 
march, the Carolinians of the districts near Savannah river, 
voluntarily took the oaths of allegiance, and received protection. 
Among the number one M'Koy, a young man of a character notori- 
ously infamous, applied for protection. His mother, from a know- 
ledge of the reputation he bore, accompanied him, and promised she 
would be responsible for his future conduct ; he received protection, 
and was told if he persisted in plundering or destroying the peace- 
able inhabitants, he would receive no favor. About twelve months 
subsequent to this period, numbers of Carolinians who had received 
protection formed themselves into plundering parties, under the 
command of a Captain M'Koy robbed and murdered many of His 
Majesty's peaceable and loyal subjects, and attacked the guards of 
the public boats navigating Savannah river, with provisions, ammu- 
nition and clothing for the garrisons of Ninety-six and Augusta. 
Having received intelligence that the King's stores had been inter- 
cepted,! detached Lieutenant Kemp of the King's Rangers, from 
Augusta, with ten soldiers and twenty militia, to pursue the plun- 
derers. He engaged one Willie as a guide ; a man who had ta- 
ken the oaths of allegiance and received protection ; this traitor 
conveyed information to M'Koy of Kemp's force, design and in- 
tended route ; and led him into an ambuscade previously formed. 
The militia under the command of Kemp fled on the first fire ; he 
and the soldiers, unable to resist a very superior force, surrendered 
themselves prisoners. Capt. M'Koy asked Kemp to join his party; 
on his refusal he stripped and shot him. The same question was 
put to the soldiers ; nine out of the ten refused and shared the same 
fate, the other joined them to save his life, and a few days after, 
made his escape and brought me intelligence of the murder of Kemp 
and his men, and that Willie and young M'Koy were the most ac- 
tive in putting them to death ; that the inhabitants in general had 
converted their written protections into cockades and had joined a 
Colonel Harden ; that the King's stores taken from the boats were 
distributed among the plunderers, and secreted in or near their 
houses. Apprehending a general revolt in that quarter of the 
country I immediately marched from Augusta with one hundred 
soldiers and seventy Indians, and was joined by four hundred militia. 
About thirty miles from Black Swamp, Colonel Harden about mid- 



654 LIEUT. COL. THOMAS BROWNE 

night attacked our camp and was repulsed; the mihtia under my 
command during the action deserted to a man, joined Colonel 
Harden, who, thus reinforced, at 10 in the morning renewed the at- 
tack, but his men being totally without discipline, were defeated 
with considerable loss. Among the prisoners, Willie, young 
M'Koy, and eleven of Kemp's murderers were taken ; the identity 
of their persons and the fact being proved and confirmed by their 
own confession, they (Willie excepted) suffered on the gallows; 
and the houses of the plunderers where the King's stores were se- 
creted were ordered to be burnt. Although I lamented the ne- 
cessity of having recourse to these extremities, a necessity created 
by themselves, I am persuaded on a similar occasion Dr. Ramsay 
would have done the same. Willie, Kemp's guide, experienced a 
different fate. An Indian Chief, the friend of Kemp, on learning 
from the soldiers that Willie was the man who had betrayed and 
murdered his friend, immediately killed him with his tomahawk. 
This is the only outrage (if it ought to be called one) ever com- 
mitted by any Indians under my command, and of which you have 
been pleased to give so truly tragical and melancholy a narrative. 
After so pathetic a display of your descriptive talents, how ample a 
field for your fertile genius, without a flight into the regions of fic- 
tion, will the Indian expedition of General Pickens afford you ! 
Such a scene of horror and devastation! Thirteen villages destroy- 
ed ; men, women and children thrown into the flames, impaled alive, 
or butchered in cold blood ! How different the conduct of those 
you style savages ! Not an outrage was committed on the reduc- 
tion of Fort Howe in Georgia ; on that service three fourths of the 
detachment consisted of Indians, and the Fort was carried by as- 
sault ; half the oflScers with me, killed or wounded ; yet the Indians 
less savage than their adversaries — (the MS. is here defaced, but I 
make out that they, the Indians, were touched at the sight of a de- 
fenceless enemy.) 

The account you have obtained of the events at Augusta is, I 
must confess, as well adapted to the prejudice of the weak, as the 
credulity of the ignorant. Your very honorable and genuine in- 
former, with a truly patriotic spirit, either disdains to charge his 
memory with transactions that might stain the reputation of your 
arms, or it was not convenient to his purpose to remember the 



OF AUGUSTA, GEORGIA. 655 

shameful violation of the capitulation of Augusta ; the horrid cruel- 
ties exercised on the prisoners, the barbarous murder of Colonel 
Grierson and others, with the bloody achievements of * Colonels 
Dun, Burnet and Dooly, previous to the siege. In either case it 
will not be amiss to refresh his memory with the following 
narrative. 

The post of Augusta being invested and besieged near three 
months was surrendered by capitulation. From Colonel Lee, who 
commanded the Continental Legion, a gentleman of the most hon- 
orable and liberal sentiments, and from his officers, the King's 
troops experienced every security and attention ; from the militia 
under a General Pickens, every species of abuse and insult. Col. 
Lee and his officers exerted themselves in an uncommon degree, 
and took every possible precaution to protect the prisoners from 
violence. The King's Rangers were paroled and quartered at a 
gentleman's house, with a guard of Continental dragoons under 
the command of Captain Armstrong. The militia prisoners were 
confined in a stockaded fort, where General Pickens and his militia 
were quartered. After Colonel Lee marched from Augusta, Co- 
lonel Grierson, who had rendered himself peculiarly obnoxious to the 
enemy by his spirited and unwearied exertions in the cause of his 
country, was under the custody of the main guard, about ten paces 
from General Pickens' quarters : his spirit and unshaken loyalty in 
every change of fortune, marked him out a proper victim to sacri- 
fice to their savage resentment. One of General Pickens' men nam- 
ed James Alexander entered the room where he was confined 
with his three children, shot him through the body, and returned 
unmolested by the sentinel posted at the door, or the main guard ; 
he was afterwards stript and his clothes divided among the soldiers, 
who having exercised on his dead body all the rage of the most 
horrid brutality, threw it into a ditch without the fort. Thus fell 
the brave unfortunate Colonel Grierson, a man high in the estima- 
tion of his country, valued by his acquaintances, beloved by his 
friends — not by the shot of an unseen marksman, but under the eye 
of General Pickens, by the hand of a bloody, sanctioned and pro- 

* Sixty peaceable loyalists on the ceded lands, were murdered in their 
own houses in the course of a week, by these execrable ruffians. 



656 LIEUT. COL. THOMAS BROWNE 

tected villain, in shameful violation of a solemn capitulation. After 
the murder of Colonel Grierson, another execrable villain named 
Shields (an unseen marksman), the same day, in the same fort, un- 
der the eye of General Pickens, in the presence of his officers, Avith- 
out interruption from the sentries or guards, called Major Williams 
of the (Georgia militia to the door of the prison and shot him through 
the body. These outrages served only as a prelude to a concerted 
plan for murdering all the prisoners. To execute this diabolical 
design, a hundred of General Pickens' unseen maj'ksmen, accom- 
panied by three Colonels, marched with drawn swords to the quar- 
ters of the King's Rangers. Captain Armstrong being informed 
of their intention, threatened and ordered his guards to oppose them 
if they advanced ; then addressing himself to the King's Rangers, he 
told them, if attacked to consider themselves released from their 
paroles and defend themselves. The determined spirit of Captain 
Armstrong and Major Washington who was present, struck such a 
terror into these ruffians, that apprehending an obstinate resistance 
they instantly retired. Enraged at the repetition of such abominable 
outrages by this band of assassins, not yet satiated with blood, I 
wrote to General Pickens, reproaching him with a violation of the 
articles of the capitulation, in defiance of every principle of honor 
and good faith ; and informed him that the officers and men having 
acted by my orders, ought to be exempted from violence, and if it 
was his determination that I should share the fate of Colonel 
Grierson, he would at least find that a man conscious of having 
faithfully discharged his duty to his King and country, vvould meet 
his fate with indifference. 

The prisoners shortly after embarked for Savannah, under the 
charge of Major Washington, who, apprehending the commission of 
further outrages, distributed the guard among the different boats; 
by this precaution, the different detachments from General Pickens' 
camp who had taken post on the banks of the river, were prevented, 
after repeated attempts, from firing into the boats. 

Your account* of a skirmish between General Wayne's army 

* On the 2l3t May 1782, Col. Browne, at the head of a considerable 
party, marched out of the garrison of Savannah with the apparent inten- 
tion of attacking the Americans. Gen. Wayne, by a bold manoeuvre, got 



GOV. BULL OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 657 

and a party of militia and dragoons, consisting of fifty men, who 
composed the advance of a small detachment 1 had the honor to 
command, I presume is taken from General Wayne's hyperbolical 
report to the Congress. As this buckram feat is altogether a fancy 
piece, it does not merit a comment. 

I have the honor to be. Sir, 

Your most obedient humble servant, 

THOMAS BROWNE. 
J^assau, Bahamas, Dec. 25, 1786. 



GOVERNOR BULL OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 

William Bull, although Lieut. Governor by appointment, was, 
for many years, the actual Governor of South Carolina. He was born 
in this province in 1709 ; received a liberal education, and derived 
an ample fortune from his ancestors. He was by far the most 
distinguished of the southern loyalists, not only by his office, but the 
high estimation in which he was universally held by his countrymen. 
On the embarkation of Governor Thomas Boones for England, 
May 12th, 1764, he took upon him the reins of government. 

Well informed as to the rights of his countrymen as colonists, 
as well as the claims and duties of the mother country, he was 
peculiarly qualified for the station ; but the difficulties between the 
contending parties coming to a crisis during his administration, his 
stiuation as chief magistrate required more than ordinary 
abilities, discretion, and sound judgment, to guide in safety the 
ship of state. In this highly responsible station, he conducted 

between Col. Browne and the British garrison at Savannah— attacked 
him at 12 o'clock at night and routed his whole party. The vanguard of 
the Americans, consisting of 60 horse and 40 infantry, was led on by Col. 
Whyte of the cavalry and Capt. Parker of the infantry to a spirited 
charge, in which forty of the men commanded by Col. Browne were 
killed or wounded, about 20 taken prisoners, and the remainder ob- 
liged to shelter themselves in the swamps under cover of the night. This 
advantage was gained by the liberal use of the bayonet. * * * 

In this successful enterprise the Americans had only five privates kill- 
ed and two wounded. — Vol. 2, p. 366. 



658 GOV. WRIGHT OF GEORGIA. 

himself with a prudence so remarkable, on such principles of mild- 
ness and forbearance, as gained him the respect and esteem of all. 
His official acts ceased upon the arrival of Sir. William Campbell, 
on the 8th June, 1775. 

Being from his situation of the number of proscribed, as a non- 
associator, because he refused to accede to the terms required by the 
Provincial Congress, the General Committee, who waited upon 
Gov. Bull with a tender of the compact called " The Association," 
for his signature, were so struck with his manly and honorable 
sentiments in declining to sign, that they forbore pressing him on 
the subject. 

Many others, of the highest and most respectable standing in 
society, were restricted in their motions, and finally obliged to 
leave the colony, while he was allowed to go at large. 

He left Carolina with the British troops, in 1782. No traces 
of his life as an American loyalist refugee are to be obtained at 
this distant day. It is probable, that, like others of his country- 
men similarly situated, he passed his time in the enjoyment of pol- 
ished society. He died at his residence. Hart-street, Bloomsbury, 
London, on the 4th of July, 1791, aged 82. A monument was erected 
to his memory at his former plantation, on Ashley River. In his 
will, dated London, Oct. 5th, 1690, he speaks with feeling and mel- 
ancholy of ihe events which drove liim from his native land, but in a 
style of perfect forbearance. He suffered greatly in point of fortune, 
as well as by the sacrifice of family friends and local attachments. 

GOVERNOR WRIGHT OF GEORGIA. 

Sir James Wright, Baronet, was a son of the Hon. Robert 
Wright, Chief Justice of South Carolina. He was successively ap- 
pointed Attorney General, Chief Justice, and Governor of Georgia. 
He married Sarah, only daughter and heiress of Capt. Maidman, 
of the British army. Gov. Wright's papers fell into the hands 
of his son, who inherited his title, and from him may have passed 
into the possession of the late Sir James Wright, (nephew of Mrs. 
M. J. Keith,) who died a few years ago in England, unmarried. 

Gov. Wright left three sons and two daughters. 

1st. James, who succeeded to the Baronetcy, and married Car- 



HON. JOHN STUART. 659 

oline Mary, daughter of J. Simmons, Esq., of South Carohna, and 
died without issue in 1803. 

2d. Alexander, born 1750, married EUzabeth, daughter of John 
Izard, Esq., of South Carolina. He died in Jamaica — leaving two 
sons, James and John — the first had one son, James, who succeeded 
to the title of his uncle. 

3d. Charles, a captain in the royal navy, — died childless. 

4th. Ann, married Sir James Wallace. 

5th. Isabella, married Thomas Barron. 



SIR EGERTON LEIGH, BARONET. ' 

Sir Egerton was a son of the Hon. Peter Leigh, Chief Justice 
of South Carolina. He was successively distinguished as attorney 
general, surveyor general, and a member of the council, and for 
his services was created a baronet in 1772. He first married, in 
1756, Martha, daughter of Francis Bremer, Esq., of South Carolina, 
and afterwards a daughter of the elder Henry Laurens, and was 
living in England with other exiles for loyalty, long after the revo- 
lutionary struggle had ceased. The only record to be found of 
him, excepting the mere decisions of the admiralty court, is a 
pamphlet entitled " The Man TJnmasked,^^ being a reply to a scur- 
rilous attack upon him for some public acts, in the case of 
a viessel belonging to Mr. Laurens. The book is well written,— 
style excellent, but entirely uninteresting. He has handled his ad- 
versary with extreme severity. There is nothing in the records of 
the court at all interesting, connected with Sir. Egerton's life : 
even these records cease with the first symptoms of the disturbances 
in Carolina. 



HON. JOHN STUART. 

John Stuart, born in South Carolina, was one of the king's 
council, and superintendent of Indian affairs, being sole agent for 
Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia, and the Floridas. 
He held a seat ex officio in the king's council of each province, by 
special mandamus from the king, and, consequent on these circum- 



660 REV. MR. TENNENT. 

Stances, his influence among the Indian tribes was greater than of 
any otherindividual. By the revolutionists he was considered a bold, 
active, and enterprising opponent, and through his agency, a large 
supply of arms and ammunition were shipped, partly to Savannah, 
and partly to St. Augustine, for the purpose of equipping the Indians : 
but both were intercepted by the Americans. All the inroads of 
Indians and loyalists from the back country were ascribed to his 
agency. Mr. Stuart was early suspected of influencing the Indians 
against the revolutionists, and his sudden disappearance from 
Charleston in May 1775, so strongly confirmed the many unfavora- 
ble reports given in to the secret committee, that his wife, Mrs. 
Stuart, and his daughter, Mrs. Fenwicke, were ordered into the cus- 
tody of Col. Moultrie. Guards were placed around their house, 
but Mrs. Stuart soon escaped, and Mrs. Fenwicke was allowed to 
return to her husband. There appears to have been good cause of 
suspicion against Stuart, for at the time Connelly planned his 
daring invasion of the back settlements of Pennsylvania and the 
colonies south of it, a similar scheme was set on foot by Sluart, 
Moses Kirkland, and others, to attack South Carolina and Georgia. 
Kirkland was sent from St. Augustine, to Gen. Gage at Boston, to 
arrange the details. 

Fortunately the vessel he was in was captured, and himself sent 
a prisoner to Philadelphia. A part of this plan was attempted to 
be carried into effect in South Carolina by theCherokees and other 
Indians, who also attacked North Carolina and Virginia, on the 
same day. It was, however, soon checked, and the Cherokees 
were driven out of South Carolina and their towns destroyed. 

Sir John Stuart, son of the above loyalist, had the honor of 
gaining at Maida, in the Peninsular war, the first victory with 
British troops over the French. 



REV. WILLIAM TENNENT 

Was born in New-Jersey, and graduated at Princeton, in 1758. 
He was, two years after, licensed to preach. He first settled in 
Connecticut, but after a lapse often years accepted, on invitation. 
the pastoral charge of the Independent Church in Charleston, S. C 



J U D G E DR A YT ON. 661 

and arrived there in 1772. As a man of learning, eloquence, and 
piety, he was held in high estimation. He boldly stepped forward, 
the champion of liberty and independence. ^Vith great zeal he 
preached resistance, nor failed to support it with all his energies. 
As a member of the provincial Congress, and afterwards of the 
House of Assembly, he, in his legislative capacity, acquired great 
celebrity. 

His valuable life terminated August 11, 1777, and his cono^rega- 
tion erected a monument to his memory in the Archdale-street 
Church. — Garden's Anecdotes, p. 202. 



JUDGE DRAYTON. 

At the commencement of the revolution, William H. Drayton, 
who officiated as one of the assistant judges, was the only member of 
the bench of South Carolina who was a native American. His part 
was promptly taken, and with decision. His ardor to support the 
liberties of his country was so highly estimated, as to cause his im- 
mediate nomination to the presidency of the provincial Congress. 
His abilities were confessedly great and popular ; talents considered 
so well calculated to conciliate the wavering and unfriendly, and 
effect their adherence to the popular cause, that, in conjunction 
with the Rev. Mr. Tennent, he was sent into the interior, expressly 
to effect the union of parties, and to excite a general and firm oppo- 
sition to government. 

The seeds of disaffection, however, were already too generally 
sown. The enemies to revolutionary principles temporized, but 
as speedily as the hope revived of being supported by a competent 
British force, broke out in open hostility, and it was quickly found 
that the sword of Sumpter and of Pickens more effectually produced 
the performance of their duties, than the persuasive eloquence of 
Tennent, and commanding oratory of Drayton. His letters, pub- 
lished expressly to controvert the machinations of the British com- 
missioners, holding out the fallacious hope of conciliation, have 
been considered as replete with irresistible arguments, and written 
in the best style of composition. 

His strictures also on the conduct of Gen. Charles Lee disobey- 



662 UOL. WILLIAM ROBERT POWELL. 

inff orders at the battle of Monmouth, and calling in question the 
military capacity of Gen. Washington, have been, by a great ma- 
jority of the Union, very highly approved. — Garden's Anecdotes, p. 
185. 



GENERAL PICKENS. 

Attachment to former prejudices, and a belief of the ancient 
system, were strong among the people of South Carolina ; and the 
spirit of opposition encouraged by the new government regarded, if 
not unjustifiable, at least rash and inconsiderate, and leading to con- 
sequences the most disastrous to the peace and happiness of the 
community. 

The exertions of Col. Pickens to controvert the fallacious prin- 
ciples, and to induce the inhabitants of his district to adopt the 
popular opinions of the day, were indefatigable. He was constant- 
ly on the alert ; vigilance became indispensable ; for although the 
tories would oftentimes show a disposition to temporize, yet it was 
evident, from their raurmurings and secret caballing, that they 
only waited a favorable opportunity to declare their sentiments, and 
engage in open and decided hostility. No sooner, therefore, did the 
British appear in force in the south, than their smothered resent- 
ments burst into a flame. Several hundred of them embodied, and, 
committing depredations on their route, marched forward to join 
the royal army in Georgia. Gen. Pickens pursued them with rapid 
steps, and overtaking them at Keele Creek, attacked them so 
vigorously that forty of their number, including their leader, Boyd, 
Were killed, and the rest dispersed. 

Of his intrepid conduct at the battles of the Cowpens and Eutaw 
it is unnecessary to speak. — Gardeii's Anecdotes, p. 35. 

COL. ROBERT WILLIAM POWELL, 

Of Charleston, S. C, was successfully engaged in commerce 
before the Revolution, in copartnership with John Hopton, Esq., 
whose sister he married. 

A claim was last year brought forward in the British House of 
Commons, in behalf of his grandson, Mr. Chichester, for the ser- 



JOHN HOPTON, ESQ. 663 

vices of Col. Powell, he having raised a regiment of loyalists ; and 
for losses he sustained by the Revolution, which were stated to 
have exceeded forty thousand pounds, but for which ten thousand 
one hundred and seventy-five pounds had only been awarded and 
paid by the British Commissioners. Sir G. Clark, one of the under 
Secretaries of State, resisted the claim on the ground that a fixed 
sura, .£600,000, had been allowed by the American government as 
a compensation for all losses sustained by American loyalists, and 
that the claimant had received his proportion of this sum. It was 
stated in the debate that this was the very last claim of the kind 
now in existence. 

Tradition says, that while Col. Powell was in Charleston, with 
the British, he was distinguished by his affability and kindness to- 
wards his countrywomen of the Carolina party, who applied for as- 
sistance under the many distressing and mortifying circumstances 
to which they were but too often exposed in town. Col. Powell 
was a gentleman of highly polished manners, of great courtesy of 
address, and of benevolent feelings towards all. He visited his 
native country in 1797, when he made a tour of the United States, 
and was kindly received every where. He was pensioned by the 
British government, and died in 1835. 

Mrs. Chichester, his only child, widow of Dr. Chichester, died 
at Cheltenham, England, several years ago ; their son, J. H. R. 
Chichester, married a sister of Sir Edward Knatchbull, Bart. 



JOHN HOPTON, ESQ., 

A merchant of Charleston previous to the Revolution, in co- 
partnership with Col. Powell, and upon the evacuation of Charles- 
ton by the British troops, became a loyalist refugee. He was not 
of a disposition to obtrude himself upon the public, from which 
cause his political career is but little known. 

Neither his manner nor address was at all conciliating, which 
his friends imputed to the severe apprenticeship he served under 
Mr. Laurens, an eminent merchant of Charleston. An anecdote 
has come down to us which is perhaps more illustrative of the 
times of old than of the individual, but which was related by the 



664 HON. JOHN HUME OF GEORGIA. 

family of Mr. Hopton, as a key lo the origin of his stern dispo- 
sition. 

Mr. Laurens had his counting-house at a distance from his dwel- 
ling, and Mr. Ilopton, his clerk, slept at the latter place. On one 
occasion he overslept himself, and Mr. Laurens despatched his ser- 
vant with a lighted lantern to bring the clerk to the counting- 
house, and Mr. Hopton, thus attended, was compelled to walk in 
broad day the whole length of East Bay. Mr. Hopton's losses were 
extensive, and he was pensioned by the British government. He 
died 25th December, 183 L 



REV. DR. ZUBLY, OF GEORGIA. 

John Joachim Zubly, D. D., a native of Saltzburg, Germany, 
■was active among the Revolutionists at the commencement of the 
troubles. He was a member of the Committee of Safety and of 
the provincial and continental Congresses. 

He suddenly and unaccountably left the Congress at Philadel- 
phia, and returned to Georgia, ardent on the side of the Crown. 
He became a member of the Royal Assembly, in which he labored 
hard to atone by loyalty for his former rebellion. 

He left a journal of this period of our Revolution, which a 
ChampoUion only could decipher. 



JUDGE STOKES. 

Anthony Stokes, Chief Justice of Georgia, was a native of 
Wales. At the evacuation of Charleston, by the British troops, in 
the Revolution, he became a loyalist refugee. He kept a journal 
of events in Savannah, during its occupation by the British troops, 
which is probably in possession of his grandson, at Caermarthen, 
Wales. 

HON. JOHN HUME, OF GEORGIA. 

Mr. Hume was an active agent of the Crown, and Attorney 
General at the time of the Revolution, at the close of which he fled 



HON. WILLIAM WRAGG. 665 

a loyalist refugee. He died several years ago in Scotland, and left 
many papers, which no doubt are valuable in a historical point of 
view. 



HON. WILLIAM WRAGG, OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 

A writer in the Southern Review, of July, 1844, introduces 
an elaborate article on the above subject, by a review of the first 
edition of this work, from which article we have deduced the 
following sketch. 

William Wragg was the grandson of John Wragg, of Chester- 
field, Derbyshire, England. His father, Samuel, was a merchant of 
London. In 1717, the said Samuel purchased from Maurice Ashley, 
one of the lords proprietors of the province of South Carolina, "Ash- 
ley Barony, and St. Gyles," twelve thousand acres in Berkley county, 
a portion of which has descended to his granddaughter, Mrs. Wil- 
liam Loughton Smith. He also purchased in 1739, from Joseph 
W^ragg and others, another Barony on Craven River, and likewise 
owned Docken Plantation on Cooper River, bequeathed by him to 
his son, and where his son was born about the year 1714. 

When very young, and with his father on board a vessel bound 
from Charleston to England, he was taken by Blackbeard, the 
pirate, but was soon released. His education commenced at West- 
minster School, and was completed at one of the English universi- 
ties. He was called to the bar in England, and among his friends 
and correspondents was Edward Willis, Chief Baron of Ireland. Mr. 
W^ragg married, in England, Miss Wood, and when he left had two 
daughters grown up. He was united in a second marriage to 
Miss Wragg, of Carolina. In the year 1753, he was appointed a 
member of the Council of South Carolina. As one of the advisers 
of Gov. Lyttleton, he incurred the displeasure of thiit functionary 
by opposition to his agency with the Cherokees in the year 1759, 
and was suspended as a Counsellor. Dr. Ramsay says the Gov- 
ernor was to blame for having provoked hostilities when they 
might have been honorably avoided. Dr. Ramsay also says, that 
without solicitation the office of Chief Justice was pressed upon 
Mr. Wragg by the Secretary of State, by the express order of the 

80 



666 HON. WILLIAM W R A G G 

King— and that his reasons for (leclining this honorable and lucra- 
tive office, are proof of his disinterestedness and delicacy. 

Mr. VVragg (being a loyalist) tells us he considers his name on 
the list of non-subscribers, as an honorable certificate of him, by 
representing him as one upon whom neither fear, interest, or the 
prevailing desire and seeming security of swimming with the 
stream, could operate to do violence to his judgment. He held, 
with other loyalists, the opinion that a majority of the people of 
America could exercise no political rights without the sanction of 
the government of Great Britain ; and that a majority in a province 
could not take any matters into their own hands which should bind 
the minority contrary to the ordinary course of law, or injurious to 
third persons, though such majority was acting in unison with the 
will of a majority of the people at large, asserting political rights. 
Dr. Ramsay says, the events of Mr. Wragg's life subsequent to 
the commencement of the American Revolution, furnish a melan- 
choly proof how quick the transition may be from popularity to the 
reverse, and that without any moral guilt. When the Carolinians 
resolved on emancipation from colonial dependence, they would 
have rejoiced to have had Mr. Wragg for a coadjutor. They re- 
spected and loved him for his many virtues— they knew his rank, 
influence, talents, and eloquence. 

Believing that the popular measures adopted were hostile to 
the interests of the country, he refused to sign the association, and 
take the oaths in favor of the new order of things; thus disap- 
pointing all expectations of his cooperation. Of his sincerity, the 
upright tenor of his life, and the ties of birth, family, and fortune, 
all which attached him to Carolina, preclude every ground of sus- 
picion. 

Mr. Wragg was now called on to sign an oath of neutrality, 
containing the following sentence : " I will not directly or indi- 
rectly, by deed, word, or writing, attempt to counteract or oppose 
the proceedings of the people in North America, and particularly 
in this my native province." He refused to take the oath because 
it enjoined implicit obedience to every proceeding that may 
be adopted in America, how injurious, nay, how sanguinary 
soever it may be — because it was illegal — no oath could be ad- 
ministered but by the authority of common law or act of Parliament, 



OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 667 

and that by so doing, he should betray the common liberty. He 
was then confined to his house in the city. His arms, viz. one 
gun, one pair of pistols, and two swords, having been previously 
taken from him on the 1st of September, 1775, he was ordered to 
confinement at his plantation on Ashley River. 

On the 13th February, 1777, the Provincial Congress passed 
an act " establishing an oath of abjuration and allegiance," and 
banishing all who refused to take the oath, within sixty days. 
This act made it treason to return to the state. 

On the first of July, 1777, Mr. Wragg, in compliance with an 
order of the Governor and Council, banishing him from the state, 
having embarked on board the " Commerce," for Amsterdam, 
passed the bar and looked for the last time on the fading shores 
of his native land. He took only his young son, and his faithful 
negro servant Tom. 

Dr. Ramsay says, he left his country with the sensibilities of a 
fond husband and affectionate father, and at the same time with the 
feelings of a persecuted man. 

The last words of Mr. Wragg's public life, ''Fiat justitia mat 
caluin" as well as the emphatic conclusion of his last letter to his 
wife, written on shipboard, " Farewell ! too long a farewell for 
me ! but God protect us, and make you happy. Once more, fare- 
well !" may be regarded as prophetic of his doom. The vessel 
was shipwrecked, and he perished, in a violent storm, on the 2d of 
September, 1777, within twelve hours sail of Amsterdam. He 
committed his infant son to the charge of his faithful Tom, who 
taking him on his back swam with him until he secured him on a 
plank. Tom's freedom was given him, as well as a waiting man, 
a horse, and a cow, and he was located on a piece of land in the 
vicinity of the plantation settlement. At his death, the master 
whose life he saved was present, and saw him interred with un- 
usual demonstrations of those funeral celebrations with which our 
negroes pay their respect to the dead. 

A monument erected to the memory of Mr. Wragg, in West- 
minster Abbey, exhibits the melancholy scene of his last moments 
— the vessel half submerged in the waves — and the negro Tom, 
holding on to a fragment on which he had secured his young 
master. 



668 OFFICERS WHO DECLINED SIGNING 

The inscription on the monument is as follows : 

" Sacred to the memory of William Wragg, 
of South Carolina, who, when the American colonies revolted 
against Great Britain, steadily maintained his loyalty to his prince, 
and his attachment to the British government, for which causes 
alone he was compelled to abandon his tender and affectionate 
family, his native country, and affluent fortune. Having embarked 
for England by way of Amsterdam, he was unfortunately ship- 
wrecked and drowned on the coast of Holland, the 2d Sept. 1777. 

" In him, strong natural parts, improved by education, together 
with the love of justice and humanity, formed the complete char- 
acter of a good man, and left to those who remain behind to de- 
plore the loss of a tender husband, an affectionate father, and a 
most indulgent master, and a warm and sincere friend." 

In person, Mr. Wragg was tall and handsome, and in debate 
he was dignified and eloquent. By returning the commission of 
Chief Justice, he silenced the calumnies of political adversaries, and 
rebutted the suspicion that the hope of preferment had influenced 
his previous conduct. We can conceive of that " natural inclina- 
tion and inbred loyalty imto virtue, which can serve her without a 
livery," and would believe that more men than get credit for it are 
prompted by the nobler ambition instead of the meaner — worldly 
applause or worldly advantage. 

The following Officers declined signing the Articles of the 
Association when offered to them by the General Committee 
OF Revolutionists. 

Thomas K. Gordon, Chief Justice, 

Edward Savage, ^ 

Charles M. Cosstell, I , . . , 

T , T. , 11 , >Assistant Judges, 
John \ ewtrell, and | ^ ' 

William Gregory, J 

Thomas Shottowe, one of the Council, and Secretary of the 

Province, 

James Simpson, Attorney General, 

Norris,* Governor's Secretary, 

* Mentioned, if I remember rightly, in Garden's Anecdotes. 



THE ARTICLES OF ASSOCIATION. 669 

George Roupell, Deputy Post Master General, 

Robert G. Howarth, Governor of Fort Johnson, 

James Trail, Clerk of the Court of C. P., 

Richard Lambton, Deputy Auditor General, 

George Milligan, Chief Surgeon of his iNIajesty s Troops, 

John Morris, Comptroller of the Customs, and 

Hon. Wm. Wragg, of the Council. 
All these assigned to the Committee their several reasons for 
refusing to sign ; most of them saying that their oaths of office pre- 
vented them. They were permitted to take their property, and retire 
peaceably wherever they pleased, and many of them went to Eng- 
land. Others went to the West Indies, ■and waiting for a change 
in affairs, joined the two expeditions against South Carolina under 
Sir Henry Clinton. 

If others who did sign had acted with equal honor and good 
faith, it would have been belter for all parties. Some of them were 
known to have acted treacherously, in giving information from 
time to time of what the Americans were doing or about to do j 
and one afterwards acknowledged that he had obtained a seat 
in the General Committee, for the purpose of exciting doubts, dis- 
trusts, and distractions in their plans and proceedings. Such con- 
duct produced suspicion and enmity, even against the innocent, the 
harmless, and the honorable, which led to banishment, hostility and 
sequestration on both sides, as each in turn acquired the ascen- 
dency and power to do wrong. 

When Charleston surrendered, after a siege of six weeks, the 
capitulation was not only signed by General Lincoln, the military 
commander, in behalf of the United States, but by the Lieutenant 
Governor, General Gadsden, in behalf of South Carolina ; the Go- 
vernor being absent from the State. All parties appeared to be- 
lieve that the State had capitulated as well as the city, until the 
British arms had been extended without opposition over every part 
of the State, Sir Henry Clinton had returned to New York, and 
Lord Cornwallis succeeded to the command. It was then first dis- 
covered that the State was not included in the capitulation, but de- 
clared to be a conquered province, and its inhabitants subject to 
martial law ; consequently liable to be ordered out in arms against 
their friends, their country, and political principles. Within three 
months after the capitulation, the terms were violated by the 



670 LISTS OF PROSCRIBED LOYALISTS. 

British commander. Some of the inhabitants of the city were sent 
off to St. Augustine; and those of the State were ordered to parade 
under British officers. This order of Lord Cornwallis was a fire- 
brand rekindling strife and hostihties in North Carolina, South 
Carolina, and Georgia, and the cause and origin of the war of 
plunder, devastation, and misery which succeeded. This resistance 
was called the second rebellion. 

It is remarkable that in the rebellion of '98 in Ireland, the same 
plan was adopted, and successfully executed by Lord Cornwallis, 
aided by two, at least, of those who had been his chief agents in 
South Carolina, Lord Rawdcn, then Earl of Moira, and Colonel 
Wemyss, then General Wemyss. Their success in our Southern 
States was prevented by the American Congress and General 
Greene's array. 

In the fall of 1782, the British forces having retired to the pre- 
cincts of Charleston, the State government was reestablished, and 
the Legislature convened at Jacksonborough. Here, while the 
war was still pending, and their enemy still occupying the capital 
of the State, and chief seaport, only thirty-five miles from where 
they were legislating, many of its members impoverished, and all 
aggrieved by that enemy, and the royalists who were their asso- 
ciates, guides, informers, and partisans, it is not surprising that re- 
taliatory confiscations were made on the property of some such 
royalists. The Act of Confiscation was passed at this session of 
the Legislature, the property taken, and some of it sold under their 
authority. No subsequent Act of this kind was ever passed, but 
for many years thereafter almost every Legislature restored some 
part of the confiscated property to the different former owners or 
their descendants, and their return to the country was welcomed. 
Many of their descendants are among the most respectable, influen- 
tial, and valuable citizens of our State. Nothing is ever said or 
done to hurt their feelings, and the Act of Confiscation has been 
torn out of the Statute Book, to efface the record as far as possible 
— nobody knows by whom, probably by common consent. 

Lists of the Loyalists proscribed by the General Assembly 
OF South Carolina. 

No. 1 — Those mentioned in the Conjjscation Met, Vol. 4, p. 516. 
Adam Thomas, Thomas Boone, Bruce, Fisher, Lin wood & Co., 



LISTS OF PROSCRIBED LOYALISTS. 67 1 

John Bailey, John Bremar, Fenwicke Bull, Sir William Baker, 
Col. Thomas Browne, Mrs. Colleton, Colin Campbell, Doctor 
Crokett, Robert Dean, Messrs. Dee, Brailsford, Hodge & Sands, 
Samuel Douglass, Eyecott, Thomas Fullalove, Doctor Gibb, Na- 
thaniel Hall, Richard Hill, John Hume, John Hammerton, Green- 
wood & Higginson^ Thomas Gibbons, Robert Holmes, Peter 
Roger, Handasyd Hartley, Lieut. Governor Irvine, Jeremiah Knott, 
George Kincaird, Richard Lambton, Rev.Charles Lorrisade, Lord G. 
C.Montagu, Charles Maine, Walter Mansell, John Murray, James 
Michie, Patrick M'Coy, Sir John Nisbett, Capt. Ord of the Navy, 
George Ogilvie, William Ogilvie, Osmond, Ralph Phillips, Row- 
land Rugely, Henry Reeves, Robert Raper, proprietors of Roberts' 
Barony, John Savage, John Simpson, (of Georgia,) Peter Simond, 
John Stuart, (George Saxby, proprietors of Thorp's Barony, Peter 
Taylor, Charles Wright, Jermyn Wright, Robert Wells, Sir James 
Wright, Lieut. Wilton of the Army, Christopher Williman. 

No. 2 — Citizens who congratulated Sir Henry Clinton on the fall 

of Charleston. For the words of the Address, see " Moultrie's 

Memoirs.''^ 

William Ancrura, Capt. B.Baker, William Burt, Thomas Buck- 
le, Sen'r, David Bruce, Thomas Buckle, Jr., Archibald Brown, Rob- 
ert Beard, Capt. James Cook, Gilbert Chalmers, William Cameron, 
Gideon Dupont, Jr., Richard Dennis, James Duncan, Arthur Do wnes, 
Thomas Eustace, Thomas Else, Christopher Fifzsimmons, John 
Fisher, John Walter Gibb, Paul Hamilton, Sen'r, Joel Holmes, Ed- 
ward Hare, John Hartz, Alexander Harvey, Edward Legge, Jr. 
Aaron Loococke, Alexander Macbeth, William McKenny, James 
M'Kie, William Nisbet, Hopkin Price, Edmund Petrie, William 
Russell, Jeremiah Savage, David Saylor, William Valentine, John 
West, Jr. John Wagner, John Taylor Ward, Thomas Winstanley. 

No. 3 — Those who served as Volunteers in the Royal Militia. 

Charles Atkins, George Cooke, John Davis, W^illiam Green- 
wood, Wra. Glen, Sen'r, John Hopton, Alexander Inglis, Robert 
Johnston, Zeph. Kingsley, Robert Lindsay, Andrew McKenzie, 
Thomas Shepoe, Robert Philip, James Rugge, John Rose, Doct. 
Hugh Rose, Andrew Reid, John Smyth, John Tunno, Jacob Valk, 
John Wragg, Richard Wayne, Alexander Wright, Robert Williams, 
Doct. Robert Wilson. 



672 LISTS OF PROSCRIBED LOYALISTS. 

No. 4 — Those who congratulated Earl Cornu-allis. 
James Btisbane, Basil Cooper, Samuel Came, Doctor James 
Cletheral, Dr. Alexander Garden, Patrick Ilindes, Charles Johnston, 
Robert Perreneau, Alexander Rose, John Scott, son of Jonathan. 

No. 5 — Those who held Commissioiis under the Royal Government. 
Richard Ash of Beaufort, John Adamson, Capt. Anderson of 
Thickety Creek, Elias Ball of Warabaw, Elias Ball of Covington, 
Robert Ballingall, Malcolm Brown, James Rosseau, JohnBrocking- 
ton, Jr., Robert Blair, Jonathan Belton, Hugh Brown, Brian Cape, 
Rob't Cunningham, Patrick Cunningham, James Cossels of George- 
town, Gabriel Capers, James Carey, Wm. Cunningham, Andrew 
Cunningham of Ninety -six, Daniel Clarey of Ninety-six, Capt. Thorn 
Commander, Andrew Deveaux, Jr., Wra. Dorrill,Geo. Dawkins, John 
Downey of Camden, Robert English, John Fisher of Orangeburg, 
Thos. Fenwicke,Dr. James Frazer, Col. Thomas Fletchall, Matthew 
Floyd, John Fanning, Elias Fossin, Henry Ferguson, John George 
Fardo, Doctor Charles Fyffe, Theo. Gaillard, James Gordon (.f 
Georgetown, John Gaillard, Zach. Gibbes, Robert Gray, William 
Guest of Tyger River, Benj. Legge, Col. Robert McKenzie, Wm. 
Henry Mills, John Mitchell, Capt. Wm. H. McGillory, Chr.Nielie, 
Henry O'Niel, Chas. Ogilvie, Philip Porcher, Wm. Recs, Benj 
Rees, Joseph Rhems, Henry Rugely, Samuel Rowe, Joseph Robin- 
son, James Smyth, Joseph Seabrook, Jr. W^m. Stevens of Saluda, 
David Turner, W^m. Valentine of Camden, John Wigfall, Benj. 
Wolford, Capt. James Dandridge, Harbrough, Elias Buckingham, 
Joseph Black, John Cunningham of Ninety-six, W^illiam Else, 
Benj. Gregory, Geo. Grierson of Waxsaw, John Geiger, Andrew 
Hiblen, James Holmes, Col. Richard King, Moses Kirkland. John 
Linder, Jr., Doctor James Linah, Patrick Murray, John Musgrove, 
Richard Pendaris, David Plumber, Patrick Murray Muckle. 

No. 6 — Those who avowed their allegiance to his Britajmic Majesty 
and manifested themselves inveterate enemies to the State. 
Andrew Deveaux. Senr., Edmund Ellis, David Friday, David 
Guerrard, Nathaniel Harrison, George Julien, John Linder, Senr., 
Robert Porter Murrell, Doctor Peter Spence, John W^llard, Andrew 
Williamson, John Wilson of Georgetown, John Joachim Zubl.y 



ERRATA. 

Page. 
12 — 7th line from bottom, for " Nath" read " Neheh." 

71 — for " Barack" read " Barrick." 
205 — bottom line, for " rocd " read " rode." 
328 — 10th line from top, tur " Barnard " read " Bernard." 
365 — 20th line from top, for " au " read " le." 
446 — 9th line from top, for " Hon. H. Pelhani" read " Gov. Edward Winslow,-" 

and next line, for " sister-m-law" read " sister." 
448 — 3d line from lop, for " daughter^ read " daughter-in-law." 
450 — 12th line from top, for " June" read " July." 

467 — 9th line from bottom, for " Peter Hooper" read " Robert Hooper." 
480— 12th line from bottom, for" 1803 " read " 1833." Judge Blowers died at 

Halifax, Oct. 25, 1842. 
510 — D. Oliver a " nephew," instead of a " son" of Peter Oliver, who was the anti- 
quarian, &c. 
510— 2d line from top, for " 1798" read " 1795." Gen. Ruggles descended from 

Gov. Thomas Dudley, of Massachusetts. 
534 — 12th line from bottom, for " 1777 " read " 1776." 
546 — 9th line from top, for " Ville de Lyons" read " Ville de Paris." 
561 — 2d line from bottom, for " his " read " this." 
580 — 4th line from top, for " 17«9 " read " 1799." 
616 — lOih line from bottom, for " Mauon " read " Maroon." 
626 — lOth line from bottom, for " Richards" read " Richardson." 
627 — 8th line from top, for " district" read "village." 

" — 9th line from top, for " Dr. Peall's" read " O'Neall's." 
638 — 17ih line from top, for " daughter" read " three daughters " 
646 — I7ih line from bottom, for " twenty-three" read " two or three." 
647 — 13th line from top, for " Charleston" read " Florida." 
669 — 3d line from top, for " Trnil" read " Treid." 
671 — 5th line from top, for " Hammerton " read " Hammalin." 
671 — 11th line from bottom, for " Hopkin " read " Hopton." 
671-2 — for " Thomas Else" read " Thomas Elfe." 
for " /. W. Gibb " read " /. W. Gibbes." 
for " H. O'Xiel " read " H. V'Neall." 
" for " A. Hiblen" read " A. Hibben." 
672 — 8th line from top, for " Rosseau " read " Bosseau." 

" — 10th line from top, for " Cossets" read " Cassels." 

" — 17ih line from top, for " Theo." read " Thos." 

" — 12th line from bottom, for "Wolford" read " Wilferd." 

" — 3d and 8th lines from bottom, for " Linder" read " Linden." 

" — 7th line from bottom, for " David" read " Daniel." 

" — 3d line from bottom, for " Nathaniel " read " Anthony." 

Kxtract of a letter from Lucius P. Page, Esq., ofCambridgeport, to the Editor. 

"On page 446 you say, Capt. George Corwin's wife was a daughter of Hon. 
Herbert Pelham. I am confident she was a daughter of Gov. Edward Winslow, 
and sister of Gov. Josiah Winslow. Herbert Pelham names in his will (dated 1672 
and proved in 1676) eight children ; but two of which were in New-England, and 
none by the name of Elizabeth. And Gov. Josiah Winslow in his will, (dated 2d 
July, 1675, proved 2d March, 1680,) names his sister Elizabeth, the wife of Capt. 
George Corwin." 

This error occurred from a genealogical table, obtained from one of the Winslow 
family, in which the daughters of Gov. Edward Winslow are omitted. This in- 
duced the belief that Mrs. Corwin (who spoke of Gov. Josiah Winslow as her 
brother) was a sister of Mrs. Winslow, and a daughter of Herbert Pelham. 

Editor. 



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